Chouchane Siranossian, Leonardo García Alarcón and Balazs Maté - Bach Before Bach (2021)

In the Europe of the first half of the seventeenth century, instrumental music became a source of sonic and expressive experimentation. Influenced by vocal rhetoric, composers sought to replace words with a new musical language. The virtuosity of the instrumentalists developed, as did invention, improvisation and the search for surprising sonorities. Along with the organ or the harpsichord, the violin was the instrument of choice for experimenting with these new techniques. Italian and German composers of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries such as Farina, Schmelzer, Mealli, Buxtehude, Biber, Pisendel and Bach vied with each other in imaginativeness. The violinist Chouchane Siranossian and the harpsichordist Leonardo García Alarcón – both loyal Alpha Classics artists – have chosen to explore this repertory, here including Bach’s Sonatas BWV 1019, BWV 1021 and BWV 1023 among other pieces.
Tracklist
01. Violin Sonata in G Major, BWV 1021: I. Adagio (3:25)
02. Violin Sonata in G Major, BWV 1021: II. Vivace (0:50)
04. Violin Sonata in G Major, BWV 1021: III. Largo (2:34)
06. Violin Sonata in G Major, BWV 1021: IV. Presto (1:18)
03. Sonata quinta detta la farina (7:51)
05. Sonata No. 6: Passagagli (8:37)
07. Violin Sonata in C minor, BWV 1024: I. Adagio (2:17)
08. Fugue in G Minor, BWV 1026 (4:12)
10. Sonata in D major (11:40)
09. Violin Sonata in E Minor, BWV 1023: I. Ouverture (1:02)
11. Violin Sonata in E Minor, BWV 1023: II. Adagio ma non tanto (2:49)
12. Violin Sonata in E Minor, BWV 1023: III. Allemanda (3:21)
13. Violin Sonata in E Minor, BWV 1023: IV. Gigue (2:38)
14. Sonata III: Imitazione delle Campane (2:09)
15. Vitori der Christen (9:36)