Aya Nishina - Flora - COMPACT DISCS [CD]

John Zorn - Hannigan Sings Zorn Volume One [COMPACT DISCS] date 08/16/2024

Transcriptions were an important part of Johann Sebastian Bach's oeuvre. For a composer who never took formal composition lessons, they were pathways to knowledge that allowed him to assimilate different styles and expand his musical horizons. In this recording the American-Japanese harpsichordist Aya Hamada explores the role of the transcription in Bach's work, bringing together the Italian Concerto BWV 971 and the French Overture BWV 831. Although they were composed for a keyboard instrument, these pieces are characteristic of the Inchimaginary orchestral transcriptionsInch that were prevalent in Bach's output. They are paired here with the Toccata BWV 912, which highlights the crucial dimension of improvisation in Bach's music. Finally, Aya Hamada offers a synthesis of these two approaches through Skip Sempé's keyboard transcription of the Chaconne from the Partita BWV 1004, which includes a lengthy improvisation transcribed by Sempé. The Neuchâtel Museum's Ruckers harpsichord is the perfect vehicle for this grandiose exploration of Bach's keyboard artistry.

On her latest , Flora Fabri interprets the highly praised sonatas and a fantasy by Ernst Wilhelm Wolf on a Inchtangent grandInch. The ingenious invention of this grand piano for the time around 1770 is an intermediate form of clavichord, harpsichord and fortepiano. When a key is struck, a wooden stick with a leather head is struck against the string from below, and a second stick dampens the string again. Wolf [...] belongs not only [...] among our classical and best composers in any subject, but is also original. More recognition seems hardly possible from the perspective of the Sturm und Drang The introduction that Ernst Ludwig Gerber chooses in 1792 to his encyclopedia article on Ernst Wilhelm Wolf paints in a few words the picture of an original genius whose artistic uniqueness dominates a maximum of professional expertise. He was a pupil of Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel. In Gotha he became acquainted with the music of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach and Carl Heinrich Graun, which strongly influenced him. Above all, he appreciated the works of Bach, with whom he had a lifelong friendship. At the University of Jena he was mainly engaged in music, and he was given the direction of the Collegium musicum, which gave him the opportunity to perform his own compositions.