In this performance, cellist Matt Haimovitz and pianist Christopher O’Riley present the Largo from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Trio Sonata No. 5 in C major, BWV 529, in an arrangement that highlights the intimacy and transparency of Bach’s writing.
Part of their album The Bach Dialogues , the project brings together two instruments closely associated with Bach’s sound world: the cello piccolo and the clavichord. Their combination creates a fragile, almost private sonic space, where each line unfolds with clarity and subtle expressive nuance.
The performance is shaped by a sense of conversation—between the two performers, between the voices within the music, and between past and present. The restrained dynamic range of the clavichord, paired with the warmth and flexibility of gut strings and baroque bow, allows for a finely detailed articulation of Bach’s contrapuntal writing.
Recorded at Skywalker Sound under carefully controlled conditions to capture the clavichord’s delicate resonance, the result is a reading that feels both historically informed and technically precise, while maintaining an immediate, almost improvisatory quality.
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