“Antonin Kraft”, Jean-Guihen Queyras and Riccardo Minasi

By associating, in his penultimate recording on his Cappa cello, the Concerto Wq. 171 from Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach to Concerto op. 4 by Bohemian Antonin Kraft, Jean-Guihen Queyras extends a 2018 recording featuring the Concertos Wq. 170 And 172 with the Ensemble Resonanz and Riccardo Minasi. They are now taking on the trilogy Wq. 170, 171, 172 recorded for Virgin by Truls Mørk, Les Violons du Roy and Bernard Labadie. The approach of Queyras and Minasi, like the final allegro of this Wq. 171is much more biting (the great stormy contrasts of CPE Bach’s music). While Mørk’s cello was very solar and classical-pre-romantic in style, Queyras’ playing is part of a late baroque aesthetic. The Concerto op. 4 by Kraft, revealed by Anner Bylsma as a complement to her Haydn concertos, seduces with his final “rondo à la cosaque”. Queyras plays it in a dissected manner, with a tone of popular simplicity and a better controlled virtuosity. A very short CD of 45 minutes, alas.

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