Stiens (Friesland), Solo concert

Solo program featuring Bach and Kodály.
For Johann Sebastian Bach, one cello was enough to conjure up a world of music and dance. He wrote the necessary notes, and the listener had to think about the rest. In his 6 suites for cello he exploits all the expressive and technical possibilities that the instrument has to offer. Of these, the sixth is still the most overwhelming, perhaps because it was composed for a five-string cello. An extra challenge for the modern cellist, who has to perform it on 4 strings.
Two hundred years later, Zoltan Kodály achieved a similar feat with his sonata for solo cello. Lidy Blijdorp received two Edisons for her CD with this majestic solo sonata. The composer literally takes you on a train journey, like the one he took so often: first with his father, the station master, and later with his colleague Bartók, in search of the folk music of Eastern Europe. They can be found in his sonata, the quiet, dark meditations and the cheerful, lively folk tunes.