Good things always come in threes. There was once the Concerto in Italian style, BWV 971, reconfigured according to the - by then - modern disposition advocated in Italy at the beginning of the 18th century (anthology ‘Concerti Italiani’, 2004).

More recently, the Goldberg Variations, reimagined for a small string ensemble, crowned a fabulous apotheosis in the land of the variation (‘Variations on Variations’).

Here are now three completely original orchestral suites by Bach, a new fool’s game organised by a tongue in the cheek Rinaldo Alessandrini, once again surrounded by his dear friends from the Concerto Italiano.

This programme, conceived as entertainment, is thoroughly invigorating, thanks to the energetic and sensitive playing of the musicians of the Concerto Italiano.

Original works, transcriptions or arrangements, from the Cantor’s time or later, produced by Bach or others: it doesn’t matter. All roads lead to Bach.

Guided in part by pragmatism, Bach regularly transcribed and recycled his own music. His numerous responsibilities in Leipzig often forced him to draw on the old to imagine the new. He then carried out profound changes which were fixed over the course of an immense work of rewriting.

In his adaptations, as seductive as they are elegant, Rinaldo Alessandrini extracts completely new melodic motifs from Bach’s music, in itself so conducive to suggesting contrapuntal combinations that have remained hidden.

The French Overture (Clavier-Übung II) in its original form could be imagined as a transcription for harpsichord of one or several orchestral works. Structured almost identically to the four Overtures for orchestra BWV 1066-1069, where a vast introductory movement Lento-Allegro-Lento precedes a suite of dances without an Allemande, the Roman conductor takes up the instrumental disposition of the Overture BWV 1066 in C major for two oboes, bassoon, strings and basso continuo. To this first transcription, Alessandrini then adds two shorter Overtures built on movements taken from various Suites (BWV 815, 816, 817, 820, 825, 828, 1069), one for traverso and strings, and the other for the strings only.