Georg Nigl / Anna Lucia Richter / Petra Müllejans / Roel Dieltiens / Andreas Staier BACH PRIVAT

This recording is an invitation to immerse ourselves in the musical inner circle of the Bach family. We are familiar with Johann Sebastian Bach as a composer of genius, but we know little about his family life, with the exception of the famous Clavierbüchlein (Little keyboard book) that the forty-year-old composer gave as a present in 1725 to his second wife Anna Magda-lena, his junior by sixteen years. This manuscript is a unique document of the music the family played together. It provides us with a point of reference for the ‘programmes’ of these domestic concerts: it contains short keyboard pieces and songs alongside extended arias taken from the church cantatas, as well as chamber music. Bach and his two eldest sons were not only virtuoso harpsichordists but also excellent violinists, while the composer’s son-in-law Bach, J. C. Altnic-kol, played the cello and was an outstanding double bass player. Anna Magdalena Bach and her oldest stepdaughter both contributed as singers. And the still young children of the second marriage participated by playingeasy pieces on their father’s various keyboard instruments. The musicians and singers on this recording, all eminent exponents of Bach and of Baroque music in general, have come together here to bring these exceptional moments back to life.

Hille Perl / Freiburger Barockochester CONCERTI

The last decades of my life I had the privilege to travel the world playing concerts and recording CDs due to the loyalty of the audience, who has granted us the honour of coming to our concerts, of buying our CDs and thus made it possible for us to keep playing our music.  I feel deeply grateful to each one of you out there for participating in this incredible trip. I feel responsibility towards the past and the future to keep this kind of music alive and participate in my way in the cultural wealth that history has provided for us. It is important to have contents that are totally void of monetary relevance, such as music, which is as fleeting as smoke and as eternal as the skies. (Hille Perl)

Hille Perl is one of today's most brilliant and versatile gambists. She delivers excellent performances of Abel's solo pieces and is an engaging soloist in the concertos. Her cadenzas are technically impressive but especially stylish. The collaboration with the Freiburger Barockorchester is immaculate, and the result is a compelling disc of some of the best music for her instrument from the mid-18th century. I liked her performance of the Graun concerto more than that of Vittorio Ghielmi of another of his concertos. There is no lack of drama here, but there is also elegance and refinement, something I sorely missed in Ghielmi's recording. 

If your are a gamba aficionado, don't miss this disc. (Johan van Veen)