Plucked Bach III

Description

With Plucked Bach III, Alon Sariel deepens his acclaimed Bach cycle, shaping a sound world of exceptional finesse and great introspection. This latest volume enriches the series with new sonorities: another member of the lute family—the Ottoman baglama—and a rare Tuscan-style mandola, whose tuning one octave lower gives Bach's Third Cello Suite a dark, velvety resonance. The archlute, present at the album's opening and close, frames the program with discreet elegance, while Sariel's playing reveals Bach's writing as both architecturally precise and remarkably tactile in depth. The album unfolds as a succession of subtly balanced reflections rather than a single dramatic arc. Bach's works—such as the Prelude from The Well-Tempered Clavier, the Musette from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, and the Second Violin Partita with its monumental Chaconne—appear in a subtly transformed light. Their rhythmic pulse and harmonic gravity are highlighted by the intimacy of plucked strings. Familiar pieces from the keyboard, violin, and cello repertoire sit alongside rarer works, notably by Westhoff and Matteis, creating a listening experience that glides effortlessly between contemplation, memory, and resonance. Even in its most expansive passages, the music maintains great restraint, allowing space, silence, and timbre to speak with equal eloquence. Plucked Bach III continues Alon Sariel's collaboration with Pentatone. Beyond the Plucked Bach trilogy, this partnership also includes Vienna Mandolin Stories (2025) and the EP Schubert's Mandolin (2024), confirming Sariel as an exceptional artist whose work constantly reinvents the expressive possibilities of plucked string instruments—and particularly the mandolin—with rare depth and imagination.