Perhaps every musician worth their salt turns to JS Bach sooner or later. The German composer was dead before the clarinet as we know it today was established, but Martin Fröst, his playing as silkily eloquent as ever, makes the short but sweet selection on this recording very much his own.
There’s an intimate feel to the whole thing, which was recorded at Fröst’s studio in the Swedish countryside, with the fellow musicians sleeping over. The tone is set by the aria from the Goldberg Variations, with a hint of a jazz sensibility thanks to Sebastián Dubé’s bass, Fröst’s melody seamless on top. Fröst duets with his viola player brother Göran on two Inventions, and with himself, double-tracked, on the G major Sinfonia; fair enough, few others would be able to keep up. Yet though this is lightning fast, it still holds to the quiet, unassuming mood.
Jonas Nordberg’s theorbo helps the Air on the G String to skirt cliche, and it’s almost startling when Anastasia Kobekina leaves the baroque cello lines behind and busts out Gounod’s full-toned Ave Maria melody, Fröst rippling through Bach’s Prelude in C below. Things finally get a little schmaltzy when Fröst is joined by Benny Andersson for a wistfully reverb-heavy version of the Largo from the Keyboard Concerto No 5. Yes, even Abba too turns to Bach in the end.
