How do different kinds of music from distant eras interact with one another – and with the listener? This encounter between the past and modernity presented on this album proves to be an exciting listening adventure: the Ten Preludes by the Russian composer Sofia Gubaidulina (1931–2025) are interwoven with Allemandes from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Cello Suites into a fascinating dialogue spanning 250 years.

Gubaidulina, one of the most important composers of the former Soviet Union, wrote her Preludes in 1974 as technical and artistic instructional pieces. With his Six Suites, Johann Sebastian Bach also created a compendium which opened up a new range of expression for the performers of his time and enabled the instrument, rarely called upon in a solo capacity up until then, to catch up with the virtuoso capabilities of the violin.

In presenting these works directly alongside each other, something remarkable takes place: the seemingly antithetical sound worlds merge into a subtle dialogue between old and new. We can hear the extent to which Gubaidulina was inspired by her role model Bach – and at the same time expanded the boundaries of musical expression into the present. “This combination sheds new light on both the well-known music of Bach and that of Gubaidulina”, says Ursina Maria Braun. She has chosen a modern cello for this experiment, while playing Bach’s entire Fifth Suite on a historical instrument with gut strings – another testimony to how much the music world has developed and been enriched.