Science 2023 07 21

This recording presents Kaija Saariaho's works for choir, a cappella and with electronics, and displays her virtuosity in the treatment of texts, which she endows with the full range of verbal expression. At least one of these works is also a discographic premières. Nuits, adieux, presented here both in it's a cappella version and with electronics, could be described as a lullaby, not so much for a sleeping child as for an elderly person sleeping out of our world. Funny and very serious at the same time, Horloge, tais-toi was conceived for a children choir.

Among the great cycles of keyboard works by Johann Sebastian Bach, the Goldberg Variations are undoubtedly those which most immediately bring us into the richness of his universe. An unequaled science of counterpoint (what a tour de force are these canons which punctuate the work!), a breathtaking virtuosity using the two keyboards of the harpsichord like never before, a journey which takes us from the desperate depths of the human soul to its transcendent heights, this is what this recording invites you to experience. All this made eminently accessible by the disarming beauty of an initial Aria which we find, transformed by the path of thirty variations, at the end of this cycle - one of the summits in the history of music.