With this new record, the flutist and director Alexis Kossenko, rising star of the young Baroque generation, finishes the integral of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's concertos started in 2006 (Alpha 093, best mark of the magazine Classica at its release). He is once again accompanied by the Polish ensemble Arte dei Suonatori, of which he has been the guest conductor for several years…
With the rise of Romanticism, the topics of opera changed from the mythological fantasy of Baroque operas to the fairytale fantasy which graced the French stage long before Romanticism reached other European nations. Initiated by the Palazzetto Bru Zane, this project is built like a universal fairytale, inspired by Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Bluebeard, and others, as set to music by French composers of the Romantic period, alternating between famous composers such as Offenbach and Rossini and little known masters like Viardot, Silver, and Isouard. This imaginary opera was conceived and transcribed by Alexandre Dratwicki for piano quartet and two singers- a soprano and a mezzo, the roles of which are performed here by Jodie Devos and Caroline Meng.
Despite the fact that Bach’s works for violin are relatively rare, they influenced posterity as surely as some of his very numerous keyboard pieces. The violin works in this recording also show how Bach used his great audacity and impertinence to invest everything he touched with magical properties.