Bach, J S / Zimmermann, B A - Cello Suite No. 2 - Demenga, Thomas (cello)
In his recitals, Swiss cellist Thomas Demenga frequently contrasts baroque music with 20th century composition, and his acclaimed sequence of recordings for ECM New Series has - for the most part - adhered to this pattern, juxtaposing Bach's cello suites with works from composers including Heinz Holliger, Elliott Carter and Sándor Veress (refer to ECM New Series 1340, 1391 and 1477 respectively). The policy has proven to be enlightening for both the classical audience and followers of contemporary composition. When Demenga plays, correspondences between old and new music become apparent, as does the "modernity" of Bach; in general the cellist could be said to bear out Alban Berg's dictum that one should play classical music as if it were new and new music as if it were classical...
The fourth volume in this series brings together Bernd Alois Zimmermann's solo sonatas for cello, violin and viola with Bach's Suite No. 2 in D Minor. There are some some direct points of contact between these German composers separated by two centuries. As Demenga explains, Zimmermann's Violin Sonata, the first solo work written by the Bliesheim-born composer, is a "12-tone 'Hommage à Bach' - not only because of the B-A-C-H motif that appears transposed in the last movement but more through arpeggios and repeated notes on open strings which, swirled around by multi-voiced figurations, are quite intentionally reminiscent of J.S. Bach's E Major partita." Or, as Zimmermann himself put it in his (posthumously-published) collection of essays, Intervall und Zeit :"The three movements [of the Violin Sonata], Präludium, Rhapsodie and Toccata move from meditative improvisation via a rhapsodic quality to the strict commitment of the Toccata, in which finallyB-A-C-H is quoted in honour of the great master of the six sonatas and suites for unaccompanied violin. "
Thomas Demenga, cello
Thomas Zehetmair, violin
Christoph Schiller, viola
Recorded February, May and June 1995