Bach - Abel - Hume

Description

On the occasion of her first solo cello recording made as part of ECM’s New Series, Anja Lechner sets herself the challenge of an ambitious program bringing together three composers from very different eras and styles: J.S. Bach, Carl Friedrich Abel, and Tobias Hume. As attested by her prolific discography with the renowned Rosamunde Quartet, as well as alongside artists who create worlds linking classical music and sonic idioms from around the globe, over the years Anja Lechner has accumulated experiences that have opened up her singular vision of a borderless musical world. It is with this particular outlook that Lechner approached this collection of works composed for both cello and viola da gamba over a period of two centuries, in order to offer distinctly personal interpretations. Placing at its heart the first two cello suites taken from the famous collection Bach composed for the instrument, the program also offers a series of pieces by Abel and Hume originally composed for viola da gamba and transformed here both in terms of color and dynamics, through the use of the cello and thanks to original arrangements written by Lechner herself. In the end, as Kristina Maidt-Zinke notes in the album liner notes, the album was recorded at Himmelfahrtskirche in Munich under the artistic direction of Manfred Eicher.