John Butt

Butt has published numerous articles for scholarly publications and for general-audience publications. Books have included • Bach Interpretation: Articulation Marks in Primary Sources of J.S.Bach (Cambridge University Press, 1990; the book is based on Butt's doctoral thesis, and is described as the "first comprehensive assessment of J. S. Bach's use of articulation marks (i.e. slurs and dots) in the large body of primary sources." In 1992, the book won the first William H. Scheide Prize of the American Bach Society.) • Bach – Mass in B Minor (Cambridge Music Handbooks, 1991) • Music Education and the Art of Performance in the German Baroque (Cambridge University Press, 1994) • Playing with History – the historical approach to musical performance (Cambridge University Press, 2002; shortlisted for the book prize of the British Academy); • Bach's Dialogue with Modernity: Perspectives on the Passions (Cambridge University Press, 2010; the book examines Bach's St. Matthew Passion and St. John Passion in detail, situating them with respect to pre-modernity and modernity, and considering issues they raise with respect to artistic subjectivity, rhetoric and performance practice.) He co-edited the Cambridge Companion to Bach (1997) – for which he contributed two articles on Bach's metaphysics – was consultant editor for the Oxford Companion to Bach, and joint editor (together with Tim Carter) of the Cambridge History of Seventeenth Century Music (2005).

As a solo harpsichordist, organist, or clavichordist, Butt made eleven recordings for the Harmonia mundi label, of music by Johann Sebastian Bach, Johann Kuhnau, Johann Pachelbel, Georg Philipp Telemann, Henry Purcell, John Blow, Matthew Locke, Juan Bautista Cabanilles, Girolamo Frescobaldi, and Sir Edward Elgar. In 2004, he recorded Bach's Pastorella for organ, BWV 590, for the Delphian label in Glasgow. In July 2013, using a harpsichord modeled on an original built by Michael Mietke, Butt recorded Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier for the Linn label; it was released in November 2014. As a continuo player, Butt has recorded with many ensembles, including the English Chamber Orchestra and American Bach Soloists. In 1991–92, for Harmonia mundi, he and Baroque violinist Elizabeth Blumenstock recorded the Bach sonatas for violin and harpsichord, BWV 1014–19, 1021 and 1023. In 2014, he recorded BWV 1014–19 again, this time with violinist Lucy Russell for the Linn label; it was released in 2015. Butt's first recording as a conductor, made in 1994 for the Centaur label, featured music of Orlando Gibbons sung by the U.C. Berkeley Chamber Choir with viol accompaniment; for the disc, he also recorded keyboard works of Gibbons on the organ. Since 2005, Butt has conducted recordings of the Dunedin Consort and Players for the Linn label, many featuring reconstructions of a specific historical performance. These include: • 2006: Handel's Messiah. This was the first recording of a reconstruction of the work in its first performance, which took place in Dublin in 1742. The release won the 2007 Gramophone Award for Best Baroque Vocal Album and the 2008 MIDEM Baroque Award at the Cannes Classical Awards. • March 2008: Bach's St Matthew Passion. This was the first recording of the version from Bach's final performance, which also took place in 1742. • November 2008: Handel's Acis and Galatea in the original performing version of 1718. This release was nominated for a Gramophone Award. • 2010: Bach's Mass in B minor. This is the first recording to use the new critical edition by Joshua Rifkin, which follows Bach's final version of the score from 1748 to 1750 exclusively from beginning to end. (Other editions have included elements from a 1733 version of the Kyrie and Gloria, and some posthumous changes by Bach's son, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach). • 2012: Handel's Esther in the first reconstructable version of the work, from 1720; Butt reconstructed the performing edition from Handel's autograph and three other historical sources. • 2013: Bach's St. John Passion, in a liturgical reconstruction based on Good Friday Vespers services in Leipzig. In March 2013 the disc was named "Record of the Month" by Gramophone and "Recording of the Month" by BBC Music Magazine. • September 2013: Bach's Brandenburg Concertos with the Dunedin Consort. It was a Gramophone "Choice" in October 2013. and was a finalist in the Baroque Instrumental category for the 2014 Gramophone Awards; it was also nominated for the International Classical Music Awards in the Baroque Instrumental category. In this recording, the ensemble used the pitch standard of A=392 or "tief-Cammerton," a whole tone below the modern standard pitch and associated with the French royal court at the time; Butt notes that many German-speaking courts, including the one at Cöthen where Bach wrote these concertos, "attempted to emulate French practice." He also mentions instruments from the time and place pitched to this standard. Still, he notes that "While Cöthen court pitch was likely to have been somewhere near this, it is unlikely that pitch was ever standardized as precisely as we might often assume or wish." • March 2014: Mozart's Requiem with the Dunedin Consort. This is the first recording of David Black's new critical edition, published in 2012, of the Franz Xaver Süssmayr completion of the Requiem. The recording seeks to re-create the forces used at the first complete performance in January, 1793; it also includes a performance of Black's reconstruction of a December 1791 performance of the Introit and Kyrie sections. Also performed is Mozart's Misericordias Domini, K. 222. In May 2014, the disc was named "Recording of the Month" by Gramophone. and in August 2014, it won the Gramophone Award for 2014 for Best Choral recording. In November 2014, it was listed among the nominees in the Choral category for the 2015 International Classical Music Awards. In December 2014, it was listed as one of the five nominees for "Best Choral Performance" in the Grammy Awards. • October, 2015: A musical reconstruction of Bach's first Christmas service in Leipzig, including the Magnificat in E-flat major, BWV 243a, the cantata Christen, ätzet diesen Tag, BWV 63, organ works by Bach (played by Butt), a motet by Giovanni Gabrieli, and period chorales, recorded in July 2014; • 2014 Bach's Violin Concertos with the group's first violinist, Cecilia Bernardini, as soloist; • September 2015 Bach's Christmas Oratorio.

In addition to awards for his books and recordings, Butt has won awards and fellowships including: • 2003: The Dent Medal of the Royal Musical Association • 2003: election to Fellowship of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. • 2006: Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship for research on the Bach Passions • 2006: election to Fellow of the British Academy. • 2010: Arts and Humanities Research Council • 2010: Kohn Foundation/Royal Academy of Music Bach Prize for his Bach scholarship and performance. • 2013: Medal of the Royal College of Organists for "organ playing, organ- and choral-related scholarship, and choral conducting," • 2013: Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the New Year Honours for services to music in Scotland.