Following the (voluntary) departure of its founder Damien Guillon, Le Banquet Céleste has reinvented itself as a collective of musicians and singers, all committed to further exploring the Baroque repertoire with the stylistic rigor that has made the ensemble's reputation. In this first recording of the "new" Banquet, Bach takes center stage, with cantatas BWV 85 and 115 with violoncello piccolo obbligato: "The violoncello piccolo is smaller and has a very special timbre that can be both serious and passionate as well as wiry and sensitive. In the arias, in which it engages in a concertante dialog with the vocal soloist, it usually embodies the voice of tenderness and consolation and the confident promise of the afterlife," writes musicologist Corinne Schneider. The Sixth Suite for cello, BWV 1012, rounds off the program: "Radiant and joyful, it sounds like a redemption that fits perfectly with the themes developed in these two cantatas," she concludes. Céline Scheen, Alexander Chance, Thomas Hobbs and Benoît Arnould are the vocal soloists, Julien Barre plays the piccolo cello.
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