Antonín Kraft, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Cello Concertos Jean-Guihen Queyras, Ensemble Resonanz, Riccardo Minasi

• Antonín Kraft (1749 - 1820): Cello Concerto in C Major, Op. 4:
• 1Kraft: Cello Concerto in C Major, Op. 4: I. Allegro aperto10:38
• 2Kraft: Cello Concerto in C Major, Op. 4: II. Romance. Andante05:12
• 3Kraft: Cello Concerto in C Major, Op. 4: III. Rondo alla Cosacca. Moderato07:48
• Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714 - 1788): Cello Concerto in B-Flat Major, H. 436, Wq. 171:
• 4Bach: Cello Concerto in B-Flat Major, H. 436, Wq. 171: I. Allegretto08:15
• 5Bach: Cello Concerto in B-Flat Major, H. 436, Wq. 171: II. Adagio06:54
• 6Bach: Cello Concerto in B-Flat Major, H. 436, Wq. 171: III. Allegro assai06:28
• Total Runtime45:15

Info for Antonín Kraft, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Cello Concertos

From the galant style to the revolutionary era: half a century of cello concerto history on one album! Following the award-winning first recording with music by C.P.E. Bach, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Riccardo Minasi and the Ensemble Resonanz allow us to experience the emotional depth of Anton Kraft at first hand and honour the transcendent virtuosity of this unjustly misunderstood musician and composer.

The artistic collaboration between conductor Riccardo Minasi and the Hamburg-based Ensemble Resonanz is characterised by an extraordinary joy of playing, artistic quality and the joy of contrast. Minasi, who analyses and knows the music-historical sources and their aesthetic environment better than almost anyone else, transfers the craft of historically informed performance practice to modern instruments and a contemporary perspective with Ensemble Resonanz. Together they have produced an impressive series of award-winning recordings for Harmonia Mundi, in which they fully exploit the rhetorical and emotional potential of music from the most diverse eras with interpretations ranging from Pergolesi to Mozart and Beethoven.

For the current recording, they have once again teamed up with the French cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras to complete the joint series of C.P.E. Bach cello concertos and to bring the virtuosity of cello playing to a climax with the music of Anton Kraft.

For the current recording, they have once again teamed up with the French cellist Jean-Guihen Queyras to complete the joint series of C.P.E. Bach cello concertos and to bring the virtuosity of cello playing to a climax with the music of Anton Kraft.

"I always find it fascinating to get to know a composer whose musical language comes from the idiom of an instrument. Anton Kraft must have been an incredible cellist himself, pushing the boundaries of the instrument in his compositions. Every single phrase of this C major concerto presents me as an interpreter with enormous technical challenges and at the same time requires me to depict the architecture of the piece and play it freely. Working with the Ensemble Resonanz and Riccardo Minasi is extremely helpful for this. Riccardo scrutinises every detail so that there is constant movement. That is crucial for this music in particular." (Jean-Guihen Queyras)

Jean-Guihen Queyras, violoncello
Ensemble Resonanz
Riccardo Minasi, conductor

Jean-Guihen Queyras
»This man has reinvented the cello,« wrote Diapason magazine about Jean-Guihen Queyras, one of the world’s most diverse and extraordinary cellists. Queyras applies himself with equal enthusiasm to early and contemporary music. He gives concerts with ensembles specialising in historically informed performance such as the Freiburger Barockorchester, and also regularly premieres new works by composers such as Bruno Mantovani and Thomas Larcher.

Queyras is a regular on the world’s most prestigious concert stages. He is also popular with audiences in Hamburg: he has performed Bach’s Cello Suites in a choreography by Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker in the Elbphilharmonie Grand Hall, and has given a concert at the Laeiszhalle with Emmanuel Pahud and Eric Le Sage. Chamber music is dear to his heart: he is a founding member of the Arcanto Quartet and plays as a trio with Isabelle Faust and Alexander Melnikov.

His impressive discography includes recordings of cello concertos by Edward Elgar, Antonín Dvořák, Robert Schumann, Philippe Schoeller and Gilbert Amy. Queyras teaches at the Freiburg University of Music and is the Artistic Director of the Rencontres Musicales de Haute-Provence festival in Forcalquier in the south of France.

Riccardo Minasi
Music Director of the Opera Carlo Felice in Genoa, Principal Guest Conductor of the Ensemble Resonanz at the Elbphilharmonie in Hamburg, and the Artistic Director of the Orchestra La Scintilla at the Zurich Opera House, Riccardo Minasi He has recently received invitations as a guest conductor from orchestras such as Staatskapelle Dresden, Berlin Philharmonic, Concertgebouw Orchestra Amsterdam, Gürzenich Orchestra Cologne, Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, Netherlands Radio, Orchestre de Paris, Munich Philharmonic, Luxembourg Philharmonic, Orchestre du Capitole de Toulouse, Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, Dresden Philharmonic, and SWR Stuttgart.

In recent years, he has conducted the Tokyo Metropolitan Orchestra, Frankfurt Radio Symphony Orchestra, City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, NDR Radiophilharmonie Hanover, Academy of Ancient Music, Konzerthausorchester Berlin, Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Netherlands Chamber Orchestra, Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, Zürcher Philharmonia, Orchestre National de Lyon, Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, Orquestra de la Comunitat Valenciana, London Chamber Orchestra, Australian Brandenburg Orchestra, Zürcher Kammerorchester, Basel Chamber Orchestra, Concerto Köln, Philharmonic State Orchestra Hamburg, Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, Casa da Música Porto, Stavanger Symphony Orchestra, Portland Baroque Orchestra, L’Arpa Festante, Attersee-Akademie Orchestra, Il Complesso Barocco, Orquesta Barroca de Sevilla, Recreation-Grosses Orchester Graz, Potsdam Chamber Academy, and Helsinki Baroque Orchestra, where he was associate conductor from 2008 to 2011.

Most recent operatic engagements include Norma in Cologne, Hamburg, Genoa, and Aix-en-Provence; Cenerentola, Idomeneo, Beatrice di Tenda, Turn of the Screw, and Falstaff at the Opera Carlo Felice in Genoa; Dialogues des Carmélites and Don Giovanni in Valencia; Les Pêcheurs de Perles at the Salzburg Festival; Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, Matrimonio segreto, Entführung, Orlando Paladino, Nozze di Figaro, Il Pirata, Viaggio a Reims, Turco in Italia and the ballets of Christian Spuck to the music of Schnittke, Schumann, and Monteverdi at the Zurich Opera House; Iphigénie en Tauride, Alcina, Nozze di Figaro, Agrippina, and Rodelinda at the Hamburg State Opera; Carmenat the Lyon Opera; Rinaldo at the Theater an der Wien; Zauberflöte, Rodelinda, and Nozze di Figaro at the Dutch National Opera.

As soloist and concertmaster he performed with Jordi Savall’s Le Concert des Nations, the Balthasar Neumann Ensemble, Il Giardino Armonico, Al Ayre Español, the Orchestra of the Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid, Accademia Bizantina, Concerto Italiano, and by invitation of Kent Nagano at the Knowlton Belcanto Festival in Canada. He has also collaborated with Concerto Vocale, Ensemble 415, and alongside artists of the caliber of Joyce DiDonato, Plácido Domingo, Gianluca Cascioli, Juan Diego Flórez, Bryn Terfel, Veronika Eberle, Jean-Guihen Queyras, Ramón Vargas, Javier Camarena, Antoine Tamestit, Antje Weithaas, Mahan Esfahani, Albrecht Mayer, Reinhard Goebel, Alina Pogostkina, Nils Mönkemeyer, Katia and Marielle Labèque, Cecilia Bartoli, Viktoria Mullova, Jan Lisiecki, Edgar Moreau, Robert Levin, Rafał Blechacz, Gautier Capuçon, Iveta Apkalna, Christophe Coin, and Philippe Jaroussky.

In collaboration with Maurizio Biondi, he published the critical edition of Bellini’s Norma for Bärenreiter in 2016. He was the Chief Conductor of Mozarteumorchester Salzburg from 2017 to 2023, co-founder and director of the ensemble Il Pomo d’Oro from 2012 to 2015, and taught at the V. Bellini Conservatory in Palermo from 2004 to 2010. He has given seminars, violin lessons, chamber music, and performance practice classes at the Juilliard School of Music in New York, Longy School of Music in Cambridge (USA), Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Hochschule für Musik in Hanover, Antwerp Conservatory, Chinese Culture University in Taipei (Taiwan), Zürich Opera House, the Kùks Residence (Czech Republic), Scuola di musica di Fiesole, Sydney Conservatorium (Australia), European Union Baroque Orchestra (EUBO), and as historical advisor for the Montréal Symphony Orchestra (Canada).

Among the numerous awards he has received for his recordings are the album Rosenkranz Sonaten by Biber (finalist at the Midem Classical Award in Cannes as album of the year in 2009), Stella di Napoli with Joyce DiDonato (Diapason d’Or of the year 2015, BBC Music Magazine Award, Gramophone Choice, nominated for the Grammy Award 2015), Agrippina with Ann Hallenberg (International Opera Award 2016), Partenope with Philippe Jaroussky and Karina Gauvin (Gramophone Magazine’s album of the month), Catone in Utica, Giovincello, and Haydn Concertos (Echo-Klassik Award 2016), The Seven Last Words of Christ on the Cross by Haydn with Ensemble Resonanz (Diapason d’Or of the year 2018), and C.P.E. Bach’s Cello Concertos with Jean-Guihen Queyras (Diapason d’Or of the year 2019).

Booklet for Antonín Kraft, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach: Cello Concertos