Bach: A Strange Beauty
Artist: Simone Dinnerstein & Kammerorchester Staatskapelle Berlin
Release Date: January 18, 2011
Label: Sony Classical
This album sees Simone Dinnerstein return to Bach, combining three transcriptions of his Chorale Preludes with one of his English Suites and two of his Keyboard Concerti, again revealing her intense and expressive playing style, as well as her individual approach to Bach's music. The mixed program offers a range of sonorities and textures - the solo piano, piano with orchestra, the piano mimicking other instruments, and even the piano evoking a soloist with orchestra, as it does during the English Suite.
The title Simone has chosen for her album comes from a quote from the writer and philosopher Sir Francis Bacon about beauty: "There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in the proportion." She feels this exemplifies the way she experiences Bach's music. Seemingly built around patterns, symmetry and logic, Bach's music upon further exploration deviates constantly from the expected patterns, altering the rhythmic stress and creating something mysterious and unexpected.
For her first orchestral recording, Simone is joined by members of one of Berlin's most venerable institutions - Kammerorchester Staatskapelle Berlin, with Stephan Mai as concertmaster. Grammy-winning producer Adam Abeshouse, who produced Dinnerstein's Goldberg Variations album and her follow-up The Berlin Concert, returns to recapture her distinctive sound on Bach: A Strange Beauty.