Bach Baroque Electronic

The arrangement of Bach's Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, for string trio by Russian violinist and composer Dmitry Sitkovetsky has taken on a life of its town, with multiple performances and even a sort of electronic remix by Karlheinz Essl. The appeal for string chamber groups longing to share in Bach's riches is obvious, and for audiences it appears to be another case of Bach's music standing up to whatever you do to it. Like most other annotators, Hyperion's Nigel Simeone tries to claim that the arrangement is on a par with the numerous transcriptions Bach made of his own works. It is no such thing; the string chamber texture by its nature adds expressive devices that were not of Bach's world, and he would have found Sitkovetsky's version bizarre.

More than the work of any other composer, Johann Sebastian Bach’s music seems to be genre-neutral. Over the past three centuries these pure, uninflected melodies and mutating harmonies have been endlessly interpreted by jazz, bossa nova, samba, synth-pop, flamenco, electronica, ambient, rave and drum’n’bass musicians – sometimes, as on Uri Caine’s 2000 interpretation of the Goldberg Variations, all on the same album. The latest set of interpretations comes from French artist Arandel, a rather mysterious figure on the fringes of the techno scene who preserves his anonymity at festivals by DJing in a sealed booth. Like Matthew Herbert, he has a Dogme-style manifesto for making music, never using samplers, sequencers or pre-programmed synthetic sounds.

Invited by Deutsche Grammophon to reinterpret Bach’s six cello suites for their Recomposed series, cellist/composer Peter Gregson has come up with beautiful tributes to these 18th-century masterpieces. Following each movement’s natural harmonic curve and rhythm, Gregson explores different approaches, using electronic effects that ripple beneath Bach’s lines (the first movement of Suite No. 5) or taking single bars, transforming them into minimalist gems. Elsewhere, he plays alongside a small cello ensemble, creating playful dances and sumptuous textures. Sometimes, as with the Menuet from Suite No. 1 or the Sarabande from No. 5, Gregson barely touches Bach’s original notes—an homage to the music’s timelessness.

Finnish cellist Max Lilja, one of the founders of Apocalyptica, takes us on an immersive journey across Johann Sebastian Bach’s life; through merging the iconic Cello Suites with an ambient composition, Lilja enlightens the space around the solitary voice.

Lots of other groups than the ones Bach would have known have decided they wanted a piece of him, from Stokowski's Philadelphia Orchestra to recorder consorts, brass groups, and even teams of electronic musicians. All these settings involve a degree of compromise. A string quartet, for example, brings a grammar of articulation to Bach that may give him a disagreeable accent. This project, originating in Russia, offers something of a middle ground for listeners who may enjoy the sound of Bach played by a contemporary ensemble: it has been carefully done so as to keep the structures of the Goldberg Variations front and center, with no more variety of texture than they would receive on a piano. Arranger Andrei Eshpai, whose career as a composer dates back into the Soviet era, chooses the combination of two oboes, an English horn, and a bassoon for his wind quartet – all double reeds.