Yuki Numata Resnick, For Ko

Programs that pit one or more of Bach's suites for solo strings with modern works that assimilate or forward Bach's ideas or influence into today are not uncommon.   I've covered a few on these pages. Enter Yuki Numata Resnick and her For Ko (Innova 951). In essence it is Resnick's continuation of what she has been  doing in concerts since 2007.

The combination of Bach solo and related modern works takes form here via a fine performance of Bach's "Violin Partita No. 1 in B Minor" interspersed with modern works by Caleb Burnhans ("Remembrance"), Clara Iannotta ("Dead Wasps in the Jam-Jar"), Matt Marks ("Trunket's Saraband"), and Andrew Greenwald ("Bouree").

The contemporary works play upon the physical-experiential presence of Bach's work against contrasting note and sound colors in abstractio to less radical transformations and even a short-story recitation interspersed with violin interjections related to Bach ("Trunket's Saraband").

Resnick's dedicated, resonant reading of Bach is quite beautiful. The contemporary sojourns and their varying degrees of distance from the Partita serve to situate the music both in the present and in the past.

It is a well-played and provocative resituating of Bach. A few plays will gradually draw you into an enchanted world that spans the centuries.

Very recommended.