Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Friedrich Abel, Tobias Hume, Anja Lechner

Bach / Abel / Hume is the first solo album by the cellist Anja Lechner on ECM New Series, after many years on the label in quartets and duos. At its centre are the first two of the six cello suites by Johann Sebastian Bach, in G major, BWV 1007, and D minor, BWV 1008. Around them she places music by Tobias Hume and Carl Friedrich Abel, written for the viola da gamba and played here on the cello, partly in her own arrangements. Three composers from two centuries meet through the older instrument and its manner of speaking.

Lechner, born in Kassel in 1961 and based in Munich, is known for her work with the Rosamunde Quartett and in duos with Dino Saluzzi and Vassilis Tsabropoulos. Throughout this recital she plays a modern cello with a Baroque bow. The album was recorded in May 2023 at the Himmelfahrtskirche in Munich-Sendling, with Peter Laenger as Tonmeister and Manfred Eicher as producer. Kristina Maidt-Zinke wrote the liner notes, which close by marvelling at how gently these three worlds touch one another.

Hume, a Scottish soldier-musician, published his pieces in 1605. The programme opens with his paired A Question and An Answer, followed by Harke, Harke, in which, as Il Manifesto pointed out, Hume asked for passages struck with the wood of the bow. Abel, born in Köthen in 1723 and one of the last great gamba virtuosos, is represented by an Arpeggio and an Adagio in D minor; his father played in the court orchestra Bach directed at Köthen. After the two suites, five more Hume miniatures close the disc, from Hit it in the middle to Touch me lightly.

In The New York Times, Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim wrote that Lechner "brings the sighing, ruminative quality of a viola da gamba to some of the darker pages of Bach's First and Second Cello Suites". Robin Stowell, in The Strad in December 2024, noted her poised bowing and found that she "consistently gives the music space to breathe". BBC Music Magazine gave the album five stars, and France Musique chose it as its disque du jour.

This is the CD edition, ECM New Series 2806, released in October 2024.