Bach

In the music of Bach, the Italian violist Simone Libralon has found a lifelong companion, who ‘unfailingly touches that emotional chord we need in the varied and contrasting moments of human experience - a safe haven reserved for intimate spirituality.’ His own approach to the suites which Bach wrote while Capellmeister at Weimar, however, is inflected not only by lived experience but also scholarship and a lively sense of performance style: ‘I’ve always thought of the sound of Bach in keyboard-related terms: fresh and light like a harpsichord, with the depth and solemnity of the organ, but sensed throughout as a continuum that conceals great compositional and conceptual complexity.’

Simone Dinnerstein has been described as “a throwback to such high priestesses of music as Wanda Landowska and Myra Hess” by Slate magazine and praised by TIME for her “arresting freshness and subtlety”. The New York-based pianist gained an international following because of the remarkable success of her recording of Bach’s Goldberg Variations which she raised the funds to record. Released in 2007, it ranked No. 1 on the US Billboard Classical Chart in its first week of sales and was named to many ‘Best of 2007’ lists including those of The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The New Yorker. Her follow-up album, The Berlin Concert, also gained the No. 1 spot on the Chart.