Johann Sebastian Bach: Goldberg Variations

The new album of the world-renowned horn player Radek Baborák, released on Animal Music, brings compositions by three romantic authors in arrangements for the French horn and string quartet. These include Radek Baborák and Alexei Aslamas’s arrangement of Brahms’s legendary Quintet in G major, Op. 111, two shorter pieces by Alexander Glazunov (Idylle and Serenade No. 2), and a Quintet in G minor, “Käyrätorvi” (French horn in Finnish), which was created by Baborák by extending the original score of Jean Sibelius’s famous String Trio. This album by Baborák Ensemble – Radek Baborák (French horn), Milan Al-Ashhab and Martina Bacová (violin), Karel Untermüller (viola), and Hana Baboráková (cello) – features the world premiere recording of the works by Brahms and Sibelius.

Having reached worldwide success and an absolute peak in horn performance, Radek Baborák (b. 1976) has been dedicating himself with great vigor to ever new artistic projects which he often initiates as a soloist, conductor, or artistic director of several chamber ensembles. Following two albums which he, together with his ensemble Orquestrina, dedicated to the music of Argentine composer Astor Piazzolla, he now releases an entirely different project: a complete recording of Mahler’s famous Lieder collection The Youth’s Magic Horn. The original orchestration has been adjusted to the possibilities of Baborák Ensemble and its variable line-up of seven to sixteen players. The diverse and lively new arrangements which have been made with respect to the brilliant qualities of the individual instrumentalists (members of the ensemble include oboe player Jana Brožková and harpist Katerina Englichová), inject new energy and youthful spirit into Mahler’s beautiful music. Baborák invited three internationally renowned Czech vocalists to collaborate on the album: Katerina Knežíková, Markéta Cukrová and Adam Plachetka.

Consistently applied over the last twenty-six years, this unique approach to performance has led to a stupendous degree of recognition and approval on the part of audiences and critics alike. On concert podiums from Tokyo or Seoul to Berlin, from London to New York, from Paris to Shanghai or Taipei as well as in a number of smaller towns - everywhere the Berliner Barock Solisten perform, they have left an indelible musical mark, ensuring that the ranks of their true fans are continually enlarged. Their programs are documented on numerous CD recordings whose exceptional quality has been widely acknowledged by music critics.