Continuing Ensemble Caprice’s critically acclaimed recordings, the Toronto Star said of this release:

“This is no ordinary recording of J.S. Bach’s six masterpieces of Baroque instrumental music. For starters, the pieces are interwoven with period-instrument transcriptions of piano music written in the early 1950s by Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich.

It seems like a crazy mishmash, unless you happen to know that Shostakovich drew inspiration for his Op. 87 set of 24 preludes and fugues directly from Bach. With clever, colourful instrumentation and judicious transposition into different keys by Montreal-based Matthias Maute, old and newer compositions coexist as complements, shedding light back and forth on each other. This two-CD set is remarkable also for the vivid, richly textured, endearingly tousled performances by 25 members of Montreal’s Ensemble Caprice, led by conductor Maute. This is music one can savour over and over.”