Bach - Byrd - Gibbons + Contemporary Music

Pianist Alexandra Sostmann writes: “I’m interested in the connections between different epochs and their polyphonic structures” and so, in this program which aptly begins and ends with a Ricercar from Bach’s Musical Offering we hear ten strikingly different contrapuntal vignettes, like so many panes of a stained glass window. The program consists of pieces by Knussen, Byrd, Tavener, Adams, Gibbons, Markus Horn and Xiaoyong Chen. With such a varied program, especially one spanning 429 years, it might be a difficult exercise to try to apply one word to its entirety, but not here; for me, Ms. Sostmann’s program is comforting.