Jean Guihen Queyras, Ensemble Resonanz

Moving from the style galant to the Age of Revolutions, this album is an invitation to discover half a century of the cello concerto’s history. A few years after a sensational first volume devoted to C. P. E. Bach, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Riccardo Minasi and Ensemble Resonanz pay tribute to the hypersensitivity of the cello and honour with panache the transcendental virtuosity of the unjustly overlooked Antonín Kraft!

There can’t be many ensembles around as stylistically fleet-footed as Hamburg’s Ensemble Resonanz. I’m still thinking fondly back to their Haas, Bartók and Berg programme on the Elbphilharmonie’s opening weekend; and now here they are playing historically informed CPE Bach with equal musical sensitivity and intellectual panache, joined by their artist-in-residence Riccardo Minasi (himself a period-performance chameleon) and their other regular collaborator, Jean-Guihen Queyras.

More than just a challenge to orthodoxy.. . Why should music ‘before Mozart’ now be the sole preserve of period-instrument orchestras? For some years now, Ensemble Resonanz has challenged this idea, without ever neglecting the notion of the sheer pleasure to be derived from the concertos and symphonies of the great C. P. E. Bach. Like their guest soloist Jean-Guihen Queyras, all the musicians master both styles of playing (on metal or gut strings) with dazzling virtuosity. This is the first disc on harmonia mundi to celebrate their collaboration with maestro Riccardo Minasi.

Harmonia Mundi is an independent record label which specializes in classical music, jazz, and world music (on the World Village label). It was founded in France in 1958 and is now a subsidiary of PIAS Entertainment Group. Its Latin name harmonia mundi translates as "harmony of the world".