Bach Season Opening 2 - online concert broadcast

“This great man would be the admiration of entire nations if he had more pleasantness, and if he did not allow a bombastic and confused style to suffocate naturalness in his pieces, or obscure their beauty through excessive artifice. Since he judges according to his own fingers, his pieces are extremely difficult to play for he demands that singers and instrumentalists should be able to do with their throats and instruments whatever he can play on the clavier.” This is how a contemporary criticized Bach in 1737, but today this reproof can equally be read as a compliment or perceptive characterization – naturally excluding the phrase “bombastic and confused”. At this concert, we have the pleasure of hearing performers reveal Bach’s “excessive artifice” who are perfectly capable of following the Baroque master “judging according to his own fingers”. For this, the second in the Bach Season Opening series, we find the podium occupied by flautist Orsolya Kaczander, who receives a prominent role in the Bach arrangement completed by George Benjamin in 2007. András Keller and Concerto Budapest have another two suites (or according to the composer’s designation, ouvertures): the B minor and the more famous of the two suites in D major including the transcendent ‘Air’ movement.