Last Recording : JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH - Sonatas for viola da gamba

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The ABEL CD was selected for the nomination to win the BBC award for the CD of the year 2009!

• This is quite simply the best gamba playing I’ve heard. Pandolfo’s sheer virtuosity is breathtaking in itself, and the term ‘speaking bow’ might have been invented for him… As for the music, Abel’s marvellously intricate, inventive and playful suites give an important context to Bach’s own cello suites. Helen Wallace (BBC Music Magazine)

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685-1750 ) - Sonatas for viola da gamba

Sonata I, BWV 1027 01 Adagio 02 Allegro, ma non tanto 03 Andante 04 Allegro moderato 05 Preludio (improvised) 06 Komm, süßes Kreuz (Recitativo & Aria, Matthäus-Passion, BWV 244)

Sonata II, BWV 1028 07 Adagio 08 Allegro 09 Andante 10 Allegro 11 Es ist vollbracht (Aria, Johannes-Passion, BWV 245)

Sonata III, BWV 1029 12 Vivace 13 Adagio 14 Allegro

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About this CD

Fifteen years on from his earlier recording of Bach’s three Sonatas for viola da gamba and harpsichord (on Harmonia Mundi, alongside Rinaldo Alessandrini), Paolo Pandolfo is now returning to this repertory with a thoroughly-rethought approach, the fruit of active and concentrated years of consideration, study and research into the inherent possibilities of his instrument. Given the basic differing natures of these two instruments, the performance of these works very often turns – in Pandolfo’s words – into a “musical argument”, rather than what is demanded by the music’s essential nature: a “musical conversation” in which the score achieves “transparency and eloquence”.

For this exercise in interpretative discourse Paolo Pandolfo has found a suitably-engaged musical mind in harpsichordist Markus Hünninger, a friend for many years and a teacher, like Pandolfo, at the Schola Cantorum Basiliensis. The resulting disc has a very personal flavour to it, reiterating the uncompromising sense of quality in all that the Roman gamba player does. Following on from his essential recordings of music by Forqueray, Hume, Marais, Sainte Colombe and Abel, he is now rounding off on Glossa his own particular vision of Bach, which he commenced in 2000 with the recording of the now-legendary Six Suites.