Spirits of Music is an unusual musical journey through the centuries, with stops on all continents. Inspired by their creators different faiths, the works on the program have a strong religious background and are moving examples of the emotional power and effect of music. Internationally renowned soloists and ensembles as Bobby McFerrin (a ten-time Grammy Award winner, he is one of the world’s best-known vocal innovators and improvisers, a worldrenowned classical conductor), Nigel Kennedy (one of the world’s leading violin virtuosos), Sibylla Rubens (has emerged as one of the most compelling lyric sopranos of her day) or the Gewandhaus Orchestra Leipzig will perform popular works from the European music tradition, encompassing Bach, Mozart and Verdi. Many magnificent examples of religious music come from artists as Kroke (playing and composing with the realm of authentic Jewish music), the Kuumba Singers (dedicated to the expression of black creativity and spirituality through song), Mari Boine (one of the most impressive folk artists of contemporary time), the Bulgarian Voices Angelite (24 women whose hypnotic chant circles the globe), Vocal Sampling (a Cuban six-man a cappella group which has been described as one of the wonders of the musical world) and the the Ensemble Al-Kindi (is currently rated among the best formations devoted to classical Arab music). With the inclusion of world music, the program will achieve a highly suspenseful juxtaposition of European and non-European music.
Watch Nathalie Stutzmann and Orfeo 55 recording Bach aria «Erbarme dich» at Metz Arsenal. This piece features in their album «Une cantate imaginaire» released in 2012. Video by OFF TV.
“China’s premier interpreter of Bach”, is what International Piano Magazine called Yuan Sheng. A pupil of Solomon Mikowsky (Manhattan School of Music) and notably Rosalyn Tureck, Yuan Sheng extensively studied the performance practice of Baroque music. Equally at home at the harpsichord he has an instinctive feeling for the possibilities, sonorities and touch of the instrument at hand, so that “the listener might easily have imagined the composer at the keyboard” (Boston Intelligencer).
The title is misleading: the English Suites are more ‘French’ in character than the French Suites, which are more characteristic of the Italian style. ‘By design the composer is here less learned than in his other suites,’ remarked one early biographer, ‘and has mostly used a pleasing, more predominant melody.’ Just so, and the same is true of the pair of suites BWV 818 and 819 which fall outside the collection but belong with it in terms of style. To all of them Yuan Sheng brings considered tempi and precise articulation in the mould of Tureck. To Bach at his most uncomplicated, Sheng brings the virtues of simplicity and clarity.
Again Yuan Sheng draws the listener into his highly intelligent musical discourse, vibrant and moving, speaking through the medium of a modern Steinway piano.
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
Artist: Yuan Sheng (piano)
1. 0:06 Op. 9, No. 1 in B flat minor. Larghetto
2. 5:53 Op. 9, No. 2 in E flat major. Andante
3. 10:29 Op. 9, No. 3 in B major. Allegretto
4. 17:09 Op. 15, No. 1 in F major. Andante cantabile
5. 22:07 Op. 15, No. 2 in F sharp major. Larghetto
6. 25:43 Op. 15, No. 3 in G minor. Lento
7. 30:53 Op. 27, No. 1 in C sharp minor. Larghetto
8. 36:32 Op. 27, No. 2 in D flat major. Lento sostenuto
9. 42:27 Op. 32, No. 1 in B major. Andante sostenuto
10. 47:27 Op. 32, No. 2 in A flat major. Lento
11. 53:01 Op. 37, No. 1 in G minor. Lento
12. 59:51 Op. 37, No. 2 in G major. Andante
13. 1:06:17 Op. 48, No. 1 in C minor. Lento
14. 1:12:25 Op. 48, No. 2 in F sharp minor. Andantino
15. 1:20:11 Op. 55, No. 1 in F minor. Andante
16. 1:25:36 Op. 55, No. 2 in E flat major. Lento sostenuto
17. 1:31:19 Op. 62, No. 1 in B major. Andante
18. 1:38:51 Op. 62, No. 2 in E major. Lento
19. 1:45:11 Op. 72, No. 1 in E minor. Andante
20. 1:49:19 Op. posth in C sharp minor. Lento con gran espressione
21. 1:53:18 Op. posth in C minor. Andante sostenuto