Bach on the Edge. A Selection of Harpsichord Works

Description

One of the essential traits of Johann Sebastian Bach’s musical thought is undoubtedly its experimental vocation. It is a matter of going beyond, at each stage, what had been achieved up to that point in a given genre or musical form, pushing to the extreme the technical resources of the instruments, the human voice and, consequently, the performers themselves. This quest aims at a perfection that is both aesthetic and spiritual. This constant aspiration - cultivated from the beginning to the end of his life - to go beyond the boundaries of the possible runs through the program of this second solo album by harpsichordist Cristiano Gaudio, already awarded a Diapason d'Or and the Choc de l'Année from Classica for his first recording. From the dazzling virtuosity of the Chromatic Fantasia to the contrapuntal density of the Ricercare a 6 from The Musical Offering; from the art of transcription, magnified in the arrangement of the Sonata for Violin No. 2, to the final fugue of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I - whose subject, exceptionally, embraces the full range of the twelve notes of the chromatic scale - all these works embody this bold transcendence of limits that Bach’s music pursues as an essential mission. For more than three centuries, this music has offered performers and listeners alike the thrill of an intense intellectual adventure, but also that of an almost physical experience, constantly "on the edge".