Just last year, Marlies De Munck, a philospher of music, made a plea for Bach to be taken off his pedestal – removed from the museum – and given a renewed voice, all in stark contrast to Thierry Baudet’s attempted high-jacking and political recuperation of the famous composer’s artistc ouevre. With idiosyncratic compositions, Nadar answers the philospher’s call, pulling Bach from the shelf, dusting him off and finding new and various ways to let his sounds resonate in our time.
Austrian composer Eva Reiter is a gambist and Paetzold recorder player well-versed in the early music world. In The Wilderness of mirrors, Bach’s famous Chaconne from the 2nd Partita winds its way into a layered musical palace of mirrors.English composer Joanna Bailie while listening to the ‘Gigue’ from Bach’s fifth cello suite, experienced a ‘strange resemblance’ to a puffing old-fashioned train. And Simon Steen-Andersen’s arrangement of Bach’s moving Capriccio sopra la lontananza del suo fratello dilettissimo for solo guitar is an astute illustration of ‘historical performance practice’. His version is both removed and closer to the original work that the young Bach wrote for the clavichord as a lamentation for the parting with his brother Johann Jacob. Steen-Andersen’s arrangement of Schulmmert ein from the cantata Ich habe genuch is like a record that is played inaudibly slower and slower until the music itself has fallen asleep. Completely the program, Harpsichordist Anthony Romaniuk juxtaposes this concert by playing works by the ‘real’ Bach, if that still even exists.
PROGRAM
Simon Steen-Andersen: Schlummert ein from ‘Inszenierte Nacht’ (2013) for trombone, cello, keyboard and tape
Johann Sebastian Bach: Prélude from the English suite no 2 (BWV 807)
Eva Reiter: The wilderness of mirrors (2020) for electric guitar and tape
Johann Sebastian Bach: Capriccio sopra la lontananza del fratello dilettissimo (BWV 992)
– Ist eine Schmeichelung der Freunde, um denselben von seiner Reise abzuhaltenf
– Ist eine Vorstellung unterschiedlicher Casuum, die ihm in der Fremde könnten vorfallen
– Ist ein allgemeines Lamento der Freunde
– Allhier kommen die Freunde, weil sie doch sehen, dass es anders nicht sein kann, und nehmen Abschied.
– Aria di Postiglione
Joanna Bailie: Trains (2014) for cello and tape
Simon Steen-Andersen: Beloved Brother (2008) for guitar
