Arie e Capricci
Montserrat Figueras
Astrée

This is Montserrat in the repertoire that suits her so well and in which nobody can equal her (as in the first recording of my list). She made this recording together with a basso continuo “dream-team”: my colleagues Hopkinson Smith and Andrew Lawrence-King.

BACH

Complete Organ Works
Ton Koopman
Teldec

Again impossible to make a choice from the recordings of this voluminous project, a series of 16 CD’s. It remains a breathtaking experience to follow a genius like Johann Sebastian Bach from his first (even for Bach insecure) steps as a composer, whilst absorbing the influences of his predecessors and contemporaries up to the ultimate master that he would become. As an interpreter of his music I am challenged to deal with the stylus phantasticus, the most engrossing and daring compositions. I was free to choose the most beautiful historical organs and the recording team has done an astounding job. I recognise myself as a non-mainstream organist with historical techniques.

SATIE

Early Piano Works
Reinbert de Leeuw
Philips Classics

Being on my desert island, the incredible solitude of this music will speak to me all the more! Reinbert is an intensely musical pianist who loves 20th century music as much as I love that of the 17th and 18th centuries.

SCHUBERT

Winterreise
Christoph Prégardien
Andreas Staier
Teldec

Hardly anybody knows that I have secretly accompanied Schubert Lieder on the piano several times. Such beautiful music by a composer who died too young! Christoph (my favorite Evangelist) and Andreas (my former harpsichord student) in a superb interpretation.

ALFRED DELLER SINGS BACH

Aldred Deller
Gustav Leonhardt
Nikolaus Harnoncourt
Vanguard

Recently re-released on CD. The Agnus Dei from the B Minor Mass and the Cantata BWV 170 still especially move me. While listening to this old recording you understand what was meant in the 18th century manuals: if you need a good example you should listen to really great singers. Without Alfred Deller the early music would not have had such a spectacular revival!