With Plucked Bach III, Alon Sariel deepens his acclaimed Bach cycle, shaping a sound world marked by exceptional refinement and inward focus. This final volume enriches the series with new colours: a further relative of the lute family-the Ottoman baglama-and a rare Tuscan-type mandola, whose octave-lower tuning lends Bach's Third Cello Suite a dark, velvety resonance. The archlute, heard at the album's opening and close, frames the programme with quiet elegance, while Sariel's touch reveals Bach's writing to be both architecturally precise and profoundly tactile. The album unfolds as a sequence of finely balanced reflections rather than a single dramatic arc. Bach's works-such as the Prelude from The Well-Tempered Clavier, the Musette from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena, and the Second Violin Partita with it's monumental Chaconne-appear in subtly transformed light, their rhythmic pulse and harmonic gravity brought into sharp relief by the intimacy of the plucked strings. Familiar pieces from the keyboard, violin, and cello repertoire are set alongside rarer works, including those of Westhoff and Matteis, creating a listening experience that glides effortlessly between contemplation, memory, and resonance. Even in it's most expansive moments, the music maintains a sense of poise, allowing space, silence, and timbre to speak with equal eloquence. Plucked Bach III continues Alon Sariel's collaboration with PENTATONE. Beyond the Plucked Bach trilogy, this partnership also includes Vienna Mandolin Stories (2025) and the EP Schubert's Mandolin (2024), affirming Sariel as an exceptional artist whose work consistently reimagines the expressive possibilities of plucked instruments-and particularly of the mandolin-with rare depth and imagination.
Learn more about this recording on the Naxos Classical Spotlight podcast!
Mandolinist Alon Sariel continues his series of Bach transcriptions with Plucked Bach II. On his first Plucked Bach album, Sariel played the Cello Suites on a wide range of plucked instruments. Yet in this new recording, he performs works for the lute, organ and violin - all performed on 'only' two types of mandolins. By offering a distinctive and groundbreaking interpretation of his own transcriptions and arrangements, Sariel manages to breathe new life into some very well-known works by Johann Sebastian Bach.
The iconoclast Toccata and Fugue in D Minor (BWV 565) for the organ receives a contemplative and intimate character on the mandolin. Excerpts of the Lute Suite (BWV 998) and the Violin Partita No. 3 in E Major (BWV 1006) are drawn in a whole new palette of colors. For Bach's Violin Sonata No. 2 in A Minor (BWV 1003), Alon Sariel shows the in-credible suitability of the mandolin for Bach's music. And as an encore, you will hear his rendition of Ysaÿe's dazzling Obsession. Alon Sariel is one of today's most versatile performers, known as a multi-instrumentalist in the realm of plucked strings with a growing reputation as a fascinating Bach interpreter.
Nimrod Borenstein: Concerto for Mandolin and Orchestra; Shak
SOMM Recordings
CD
$20.99Mar 27, 2026
SOMM RECORDINGS celebrates the powerful and dynamic relationship between soloist and orchestra with three works by Nimrod Borenstein, whom Opus klassiek called "Brilliant... an inspired composer but also an inspiring conductor." Borenstein leads the English Chamber Orchestra in his Concerto for mandolin and orchestra; Shakespeare Songs for soprano and orchestra; and Legende - Concerto for oboe and orchestra. The program features mandolinist Alon Sariel, honored for his "dazzling virtuosity" by The Vancouver Sun; soprano Sarah Fox- Honorary Fellow at the University of London's Royal Holloway College and winner of the Kathleen Ferrier and John Christie awards-praised for her "shining intelligence" by Gramophone; and oboist Sanja Romic, hailed by Zubin Mehta for her "musical depth and lovely tone" and applauded worldwide for her expressive sound and charismatic stage presence. Nimrod Borenstein-whose substantial catalogue currently numbers more than 100 works ranging from orchestral and chamber music to solo instrumental pieces-made his SOMM debut [SOMMCD 281] conducting the first recordings of his Piano Concerto, piano quintet Light and Darkness, and Shirim for solo piano, celebrated by Pizzicato as "feel-good music of exquisite quality." With reference to this present release, Borenstein describes the relationship between soloist and orchestra as having an epic, almost theatrical quality. "It can become a moment of confession, or of confrontation," he says, "a personal voice rising against, or carried by, a collective force." These elements are richly evident in all three works presented here. While the qualities of a mandolin can be delicate, quiet, and soft, Borenstein's choice in composing his Concerto for mandolin and orchestra was to create a work that feels monumental in scope while showcasing the virtuosic capabilities of the instrument. To this end, the composer explored many of the technical ideas and expressive tools pioneered by Paganini for the violin, adapting them to the mandolin's unique sound. This release of Borenstein's Shakespeare Songs reprises his performance in March 2025 at London's Cadogan Hall with Sarah Fox and the English Chamber Orchestra. In choosing and setting these five Shakespeare sonnets, Borenstein has created both variety and a sense of overall structure ranging from the enchantment of pure beauty in "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" to the despair-turned-hope in "When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes." The two-movement Legende - Concerto for oboe and orchestra was written for and premiered by Sanja Romic in 2024. The slow, dance-like opening is like a preamble to a tale about to be told; "Let me tell you a story about a legend I once heard." The second and final movement is more fiery, with contrasts leading to a faster tempo return of the opening theme, creating a sense of narrative closure before a brilliant, virtuosic conclusion.
Vienna Mandolin Stories is Alon Sariel's first full concerto album, inviting listeners on a journey through late-18th- and early-19th-century Vienna. The album features works for mandolin and orchestra by Haydn, Mozart, Krahmer, and Paisiello. While some pieces were originally composed for mandolin, others have been skillfully adapted by Sariel. The album thrives on Sariel's inventive and playful approach, as represented in "Haydn's Mandolin Concerto", an imaginative rearrangement combining movements from different concertos, including one by Malzat long misattributed to Haydn. Highlights also include the "bluegrass" cadence in the slow movement of the "Haydn" concerto and the clever nod to Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier in Sariel's arrangement of Mozart's Andante for Flute and Orchestra. Sariel brings to light Ernest Krahmer's works for mandolin and orchestra, recently found at the Bavarian State Library and recorded here for the first time. The period musicians of the Kolner Akademie, under the direction of Michael Alexander Willens, deliver an ideal soundscape for these vibrant and colorful works. Alon Sariel is one of today's most versatile plucked-string performers, earning recognition as a multi-instrumentalist and a captivating Bach interpreter. Following the releases of Plucked Bach (2022), Plucked Bach II (2023), and Schubert's Mandolin (2024) on PENTATONE, he now presents his first concerto recording. The Kolner Akademie and it's music director Michael Alexander Willens, make their PENTATONE debut with this recording.
To mark the 250th anniversary of the death of George Philipp Telemann, mandolinist Alon Sariel presents a diverse compilation of remarkable works by the great German composer. Together with his ensemble Concerto Foscari he plays repertoire that has never been heard before in this musical form. Born in the Israeli city of Beersheba, Alon Sariel encountered the mandolin at a young age. Constantly in search of a new challenging, he discovered Telemann's solo fantasias, which were originally written for another instrument, and arragned them for the mandolin. Clearly impressed by this discovery, he started to take a broader interest in Telemann, his incredible wealth of ideas and his compositions, whcih are not limited to any particular genre. Telemann effortlessly mastered every style of his age.
This album is Alon Sariel's personal homage to Rembrandt van Rijn - the world of arts is celebrating the 350th anniversary of the death of the great painter in 2019. As a lute player, the Dutch Golden Age has drawn Alon Sariel's attention for a while now. Perhaps because these musical pearls are hardly ever played and certainly are not regarded within what became standard repertoire for the instrument. A large part of this project was originally lute music, as the lute was without doubt the most popular instrument in the Dutch Golden Age. We see that in the paintings: Around twenty-five per cent of musical paintings show a lute. Sariel did however add a few instruments into this project, instruments which were as well very common in the Dutch Golden Age, like different viols and recorders. Through the arrangements to be found on this album, this lute music becomes even more colorful. There's also quite some amount of free improvisation in Sariel's arrangements, as improvisation was a very important element in the music of the time, and also today's musicians follow their own imagination driven by Rembrandt's paintings. While rehearsing and recording this music with Concerto Foscari, the musicians often spoke about colors, trying to get a darker or brighter sound etc., that's when they noticed that a lot of the musical terminology actually comes from the visual world, from paintings. The moment where painters try to visualize music could therefore be a very fascinating one. As if they try to "freeze" music into some-thing eternal, which has a longer life than simply a chord on the lute. What Alon Sariel aimed to do in this album is to "de-frost" those moments and, above all, to create the "soundtrack" of the Dutch Golden Age. Two of the pieces are receiving their first modern recording: Louys de Moy's "L'Italiana & Spagnolet" and the Allemande by Constantijn Huygens.
To mark the 250th anniversary of the death of Georg Philipp Telemann, mandolinist Alon Sariel presents a diverse compilation of remarkable works by the great German composer. The compilation is enriched with works by three of Telemann’s contemporaries: Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Carl Friedrich Abel and Johann Friedrich Fasch, all three of whom engaged in the creative spirit of the Hamburg composer and his works. Together with his ensemble Concerto Foscari he recorded repertoire that has never been heard before in this musical form. This recording is now available on Vinyl.
Alon Sariel makes his PENTATONE debut with Plucked Bach, a program exploring Bach’s cello suites performed on different mandolins, lutes, baroque guitar and oud, concluding with Sariel’s own Bach-inspired Mandolin Partita. Bach’s suites are often considered to be “the cellist’s Bible”, but the transferability of his music between instruments – a practice to which the composer himself also contributed frequently – seems to justify this fresh approach. Sariel aims to realize the timeless and universal character of Bach’s music in a multifarious sound world of plucked instruments, through a program that employs an interplay of light and dark, embodied by the first and second suites respectively.
Another objective has been to bring out the youthful élan of this music, composed years before Bach’s Passions. Altogether, this album presents Bach’s music in a new, enticing light. Alon Sariel is one of the most versatile performers of his generation, whose guiding principle is a changing perspective; giving new life to existing material, as well as creating completely new works.
REVIEWS:
It’s a pleasure to hear Israeli lutenist Alon Sariel once again...Sariel’s artistic insight is just as keen as I remembered it. Here, he plays several mandolins and lutes, baroque guitar, and oud, all of which are displayed on the album cover and all are performed with his usual class and style.
The program of Sariel’s arrangements of various Bach cello suites begins with the Prelude from Suite No. 5 in C Minor, arranged for mandolin, an instrument whose classical voice is usually heard, if at all, in song accompaniments. Here, Sariel makes a fine impression for it as a plaintive, searching voice. Cello Suite No. 1 in G Major, heard in Sariel’s arrangement for lute, establishes the instrument’s authentic voice right off in an urgently strummed 2-part setting. Gavottes I and II from Suite No. 6 in D Major make a nice encore, clarified in thought and feeling. Suite No. 2 in D Minor, if anything, makes an even finer impression as a lute arrangement, beginning with a slow, contemplative Prelude with a haunting echo. As an encore, the Sarabande from this suite is performed once again, this time in Sariel’s arrangement for the Oud, an instrument of North African or Arabic origin without frets and with a short neck and, most importantly, a distinctively low, passionate voice that makes for a fine arrangement in this instance.
Sariel concludes the program with his own Mandolin Partita for what would appear to be a round-backed Neapolitan model. It is in six movements: a mystery-laden Prelude, intriguing Allemande, florid Courante with cascading notes, gently poignant Sarabande, Minuets I & 2 characterized by lively syncopations, and a Gigue handsomely decorated with grace notes. All of which reveal his knowing grasp of the Baroque style.
