Trio Sonatas ZWV 181 | Ghosts

Zelenka understood better than virtually all of his contemporaries how to stretch the musical rules of his time; he composed in a highly complex, contrapuntal manner, employing long themes which often deviate from conventional structures. On top of this, Zelenka constantly uses unusually distant harmonies to intensify the expression of his music. With his absolute desire for expressivity and his courage to burst the musical bounds of the period, Zelenka counts as a modernist in Baroque music. The six trio sonatas recorded on this CD present the largest group of Zelenka's chamber music for a single ensemble. Despite their high quality they were forgotten for centuries; they were only rediscovered a few decades ago. Our fascination for this rich and profound music has spurred us on to come closer on this CD to the special tonal language, evocative complexity, and audacious invention of Zelenka’s music. A challenge, but also a special feature, of our work on these pieces has been the creation of a playable score on the basis of the surviving—barely readable and sometimes clearly erroneous—manuscript sources.