Alexandre Tharaud

There is something appealing about the combination of Latin style and a Northern sense of structure. It approaches perfection. Have a look at a 1972 BMW 3.0 CS, and you’ll see what I mean. With music, Igor Stravinsky called it “Italy gone north” and applied it to some of his favorite works by Peter Ilich Tchaikovsky and Jean Sibelius. Johann Sebastian Bach had this sense, too, and transcribed some of Antonio Vivaldi’s concertos for keyboard, as well as composing in the Italian style within his unique intellect. The latter result is Bach’s incredible Italian Concerto, played with superb musicianship by Alexandre Tharaud on this disc. What’s more, Bach likely would have understood the musical grace of the beautiful modern piano employed by Tharaud, heard here in Bach’s keyboard transcriptions of music by Vivaldi and the Marcello brothers.