Bach by Emmanuel Pahud, Jonathan Manson and Trevor Pinnock

Emmanuel Pahud, Jonathan Manson and Trevor Pinnock

Emmanuel Pahud has recorded Johann Sebastian Bach's flute sonatas with harpsichordist Trevor Pinnock and cellist Jonathan Manson. Gramophone wrote: 'One of the most attractive features of these performances is its moving and gentle beauty.' Today, Manson is the soloist in the Cello Suite No. 1 . The first of six were forgotten until the then-only thirteen-year-old Pedro Casals turned them up at a bookstall. Casals himself became a legend, but so did the cello suites by him.

Bach

In his time, Bach's flute sonatas could often be heard in a Leipzig coffee house where he gave concerts. Pahud, Manson and Pinnock play three of the four sonatas that have survived. They show a composer who takes tradition into account but also innovates. For example, the sonatas are very expressive, they move towards the 'empfindsamer Stil': not only technique excels, but also the feeling. In addition, the sonatas are full of dialogues and voices imitating each other. Pahud brilliantly gives the music extra wings, wrote the New York Times.