More Bach, Please !

Description

Three completely new orchestral suites by Bach, actually crafted by the harpsichordist – and director of Concerto Italiano – Rinaldo Alessandrini, based on movements from various harpsichord suites, including the famous Ouverture à la française (BWV 831) in its entirety. An album of pure entertainment, absolutely invigorating. Never two without three. There was once the Concerto in the Italian style, BWV 971, reconfigured according to the then-recent arrangement advocated by early 18th-century Italy (anthology "Concerti italiani," 2004, OP30301). More recently, the Goldberg Variations, reimagined for a few strings, crowned an almost whimsical apotheosis in the land of variation ("Variations on Variations," OP30575). Here now are three completely new orchestral suites by Bach, a new game of deception organized not without malice by Rinaldo Alessandrini, once again surrounded by his dear friends from Concerto Italiano. Partly guided by pragmatism, Bach regularly engaged in the transcription and reuse of earlier pieces, his numerous responsibilities in Leipzig forcing him in the 1720s and 1730s to draw from the old to imagine the new; he then undertook profound revisions that were solidified through an immense rewriting effort. In his adaptations, as appealing as they are elegant, Rinaldo Alessandrini derives completely new melodic motifs from Bach's music, which itself is so conducive to suggesting well-kept contrapuntal combinations. In the Ouverture à la française (Clavier-Übung II), an imaginary transcription for harpsichord of one or more originals with orchestra, structured almost identically to the four orchestral Ouvertures BWV 1066-1069 where a grand introductory lento-allegro-lento movement precedes a suite of dances without an Allemande, the Roman conductor takes the instrumental arrangement of Ouverture BWV 1066, in C major, for two oboes, bassoon, strings, and continuo. To this first transcription, Alessandrini then adds two shorter Ouvertures that he has developed from movements extracted from various suites (BWV 815, 816, 817, 820, 825, 828, 1069), one for traverso and strings and the other for strings alone. This program, conceived as entertainment, becomes perfectly invigorating through the energetic and sensitive playing of the musicians of Concerto Italiano, and will do your ears good. Original works, transcriptions, or arrangements, from the time of the Cantor or later, made by Bach or others: it doesn't matter. All roads lead to Bach; to his essence.