Pieter Wispelwey - J.S. Bach: Gamba Sonatas (1999)

On this disc we celebrate three main aspects of Bach’s art. The G major and the G minor preludes represent his powerful harmonic language, which is as far-reaching in small scale pieces as it is in bigger. In the process of transcribing them for piccolo cello I thought I’d include a little riddle, more or less in the spirit of his riddle canons. (The secrets behind this riddle shouldn’t of course be revealed, but lets just say that they have to do with creative scordatura tuning). In the G major one, apart from the adventure of endless modulating, particularly appealing to me was the compelling descent from the silvery high register, through the umbrageous middle range, down to the mystical pond of the lowest register. Seemingly simple means, highly suggestive outcome and just one example out of thousands of Bach’s mastery of musical alchemy….