Bach 333
The New Complete Edition
Various Artists
DG 4798000 (222CD, DVD et al)


If you enjoyed 2016’s superbly comprehensive Mozart 225 box, Deutsche Grammophon and Decca have done it again, this time celebrating the 333rd anniversary of the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach with the biggest (and heaviest) collection of any composer in recording history. According to editorial consultant Sir Nicholas Kenyon, the number 333 is important, because three is a key Bach number representing the Holy Trinity. “The symbolism of three, and three times three, is everywhere in the collection of organ works Clavier-Übung III,” he writes. “We often sense these underlying features in the composer’s work; while I don’t think he ever let them dominate his thinking, it was clearly a way in which he was expressing the harmony of the universe as he saw it.” If Bach 333 still seems a little contrived – should we look forward to Schubert 222 next year? – any excuse to celebrate Bach is good enough in my book.

Bach 333Bach 333: The New Complete Edition

The result of two years’ scholarly research and the help of the Leipzig Bach Archive, the...