Bach – Abel – Hume Anja Lechner

• Tobias Hume (1569 - 1645): A Question:
• 1 Hume: A Question 02:06
• An Answer:
• 2 Hume: An Answer 02:46
• Harke, Harke:
• 3 Hume: Harke, Harke 02:34
• Carl Friedrich Abel (1723 - 1787): Arpeggio in D Minor, AbelWV A1:A26:
• 4 Abel: Arpeggio in D Minor, AbelWV A1:A26 03:37
• Adagio in D Minor, AbelWV A1:A30:
• 5 Abel: Adagio in D Minor, AbelWV A1:A30 04:52
• Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750): Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007:
• 6 Bach: Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: I. Prelude 02:34
• 7 Bach: Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: II. Allemande 04:38
• 8 Bach: Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: III. Courante 02:52
• 9 Bach: Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: IV. Sarabande 03:15
• 10 Bach: Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: V. Menuet I – Menuet II 03:31
• 11 Bach: Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007: VI. Gigue 01:44
• Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1008:
• 12 Bach: Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1008: I. Prelude 04:01
• 13 Bach: Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1008: II. Allemande 03:56
• 14 Bach: Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1008: III. Courante 02:13
• 15 Bach: Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1008: IV. Sarabande 05:00
• 16 Bach: Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1008: V. Menuet I – Menuet II 03:16
• 17 Bach: Cello Suite No. 2 in D Minor, BWV 1008: VI. Gigue 02:59
• Tobias Hume: Hit It in the Middle:
• 18 Hume: Hit It in the Middle 01:33
• Tom and Mistresse Fine:
• 19 Hume: Tom and Mistresse Fine 01:51
• The New Cut:
• 20 Hume: The New Cut 01:35
• A Pollish Ayre:
• 21 Hume: A Pollish Ayre 01:32
• Touch Me Lightly:
• 22 Hume: Touch Me Lightly 02:52
• Total Runtime 01:05:17

Info for Bach – Abel – Hume

For her first solo-violoncello album on ECM’s New Series, Anja Lechner devotes herself to a particularly unique convergence of three composers from vastly different contexts: JS Bach, Carl Friedrich Abel and Tobias Hume. In the past, her extensive discography has captured the cellist as part of the renowned Rosamunde Quartett, as well as alongside seminal artists from both trans-idiomatic sound worlds and the realm of classical music, gracing her with rare musical farsightedness. With her distinct perspective on works composed for both violoncello and viola da gamba, Lechner – “one of the most gifted cellists in the world” (Strings magazine) – sheds a fresh light on music written within a span of two centuries.

Framing the first two solo suites from the famous group of six Bach wrote for the violoncello are Abel and Hume compositions, originally conceived for viola da gamba, which are given new colour and breadth through Lechner’s interpretation on cello – in parts newly arranged by herself. Connecting all three composers is a certain improvisatory notion within the fabric of their work, second-nature for composers and musicians between the 16th–18th centuries, when these three lived.

Opening the programme are works by Hume, preserved in the very first print edition, namely the collection “The First Part Of Ayres” from 1605. The Scottish composer (and former soldier)’s pieces can be understood as depictions of moods or frames of minds, each of the 116 dances and miniatures in the collection (mostly notated in tablature) corresponding to slightly different temperaments. “A Question”, “An Answer”, “Harke Harke” – a narrative is broached, to be concluded with the final piece on the album, Hume’s tuneful “Touch Me Lightly”. The composer’s lyrical qualities are emphasized in Anja Lechner’s thoughtful interpretation, bringing new, subtle characteristics to the fore.

Of the 150 years later composer Carl Friedrich Abel, Anja Lechner addresses the Arpeggio and Adagio, each in d minor. Lechner endows the already intense scores with her own expressivity in these fluid performances. It’s a fitting preamble to Bach’s violoncello suites Nos. 1&2 in G major and d minor, where the cellist channels the full range of her deep experience in the genre and delivers powerful readings of this core repertory.

Reviewing a solo recital from 2022, where Lechner likewise performed one of Bach’s violoncello suites, among other works, the German daily paper Süddeutsche Zeitung praised cellist’s unique “delivery, which always underlines her precise articulation in a most musical fashion”, noting how her performances are marked by a “sense of longing anchored in deep and serious elegance”. The same dedicated and impassioned sense of abandon can be heard and felt here. And at the end, as Kristina Maidt-Zinke notes in the album-accompanying liner notes, “one marvels at the lightness and inner logic with which three worlds have ever so gently touched one another”.

The album, recorded at the Himmelfahrtskirche in Munich, was produced by Manfred Eicher.

Anja Lechner, solo-violoncello

Anja Lechner
performs as soloist with leading orchestras, as a chamber musician, and as creative participant in diverse projects between the genres. Composers who have written music for her range from Tigran Mansurian, Valentin Silvestrov, Tõnu Kõrvits, Hooshyar Khayam, Zad Moultaka to Dino Saluzzi.

The range of her musical interests is reflected in more than twenty albums for ECM Records.

Her recent releases include Quasi Parlando, music of Tigran Mansurian, with violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the Amsterdam Sinfonietta, Mirrors, music of Tõnu Kõrvits, whose compositions she has premiered with the Tallinn Chamber Orchestra and the Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir under Tõnu Kaljuste, and Lontano, featuring Lechner’s duo with French pianist Francois Couturier playing music of Giya Kancheli, Anouar Brahem, Ariel Ramirez beside their own music. Lechner and Couturier also collaborate in the Tarkovsky Quartet, with their third ECM album Nuit Blanche.

Lechner was a founding member of the Rosamunde Quartet, with whom she worked for 18 years until the group’s dissolution in 2009, playing on major international stages and at chamber music festivals.

Since 1998, she collaborates with Argentine bandoneon master Dino Saluzzi.

This season 2021/22, Anja Lechner is presenting old and new music for solo cello from J. S. Bach to Valentin Silvestrov, and improvising. She is touring with guitarist Pablo Márquez, playing music by Franz Schubert from their latest ECM album Die Nacht, and the duo Lechner/Couturier is presenting their new program Lontano.

Anja Lechner grew up in Neubeuern am Inn and studied with Heinrich Schiff and János Starker.

Booklet for Bach – Abel – Hume