Alon Sariel makes his PENTATONE debut with Plucked Bach, a programme exploring Bach's cello suites, performed on various mandolines, lutes, baroque guitar and oud, concluding with Sariel's own Bach-inspired Mandolin Partita. Bach's suites are often regarded as "the cellist's bible", but the transferability of his music between instruments - a practice to which the composer himself often contributed - seems to justify this fresh approach.
Sariel aims to realise the timeless and universal character of Bach's music in a versatile sound world of plucked instruments, through a programme that employs a play of light and dark, embodied respectively by the first and second suites. Another aim was to bring out the youthful vigour of this music, which was composed years before Bach's Passions. All in all, this album presents Bach's music in a new, seductive light.
Alon Sariel is one of the most versatile performers of his generation, whose guiding principle is a changing perspective; breathing new life into existing material, but also creating entirely new works.
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