Simon Borutzki: Bach all’italiano | Klanglogo KL1517

Simon Borutzki: Bach all’italiano

£11.35

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Label: Klanglogo

Cat No: KL1517

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 1

Genre: Chamber

Release Date: 27th May 2016

Contents

About

Johann Sebastian Bach most likely is the composer whose music has been arranged most commonly throughout history. However, it is a less known fact that Bach himself acted as an arranger of music from the hand of other composers. For instance, he skilfully transcribed the violin  concertos of his Italian colleagues Allesandro Marcello (1673–1747) and Antonio Vivaldi (1678– 1741) for the harpsichord, in such a manner that both – the composer and the arranger – appear to meld into one congenial entity. For Bach all’Italiano, the recorder player Simon Borutzki examined these transcriptions and arranged a selection of them into concertos for recorder and continuo ensemble, which maintain their Italian sentiment and the German texture of Bach's renditions and at the same time enrich them with the unique tonal qualities of the various flutes. After all, as the music critic Johann Mattheson said in 1739: "Borrowing is a permissible thing; but you have to make the imitations in such a fashion that they obtain an appearance nicer and better than the movements they were borrowed from."

With this intention, Simon Borutzki, by means of his eight concertos, offers a totally new and highly unique view of Bach's adaptation of the Italian style – entirely in the sense of baroque instrumentations typical of a concerto da camera.

Reviews

Perhaps the highest form of Baroque flattery was all-out copying, and with Bach all’italiano the young recorder player Simon Borutzki has taken this concept and expanded it further, selecting a clutch of JS Bach’s harpsichord transcriptions of violin concertos by Vivaldi and Marcello, along with Bach’s own Italian Concerto in F, BWV971, and with harpsichordist Clemens Flick rearranging them once more, this time as recorder concertos backed by a continuo ensemble ... The result is one of the most exciting albums to have landed on my desk all year, not just because of the way in which the various recorders’ timbres lend further timbral spice to the untampered-with Italy-meets-Germany flavour of Bach’s first arrangements, but because of the combination of showstopping virtuosity and singing conviction on display, obviously from Borutzki himself but also notably from Flick, who frequently shares the spotlight to delightful effect.  Charlotte Gardner
Gramophone August 2016
Gramophone Editor's Choice

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