Céline Moinet / l'arte del mondo / Werner Ehrhardt BACH Oboe Concertos

Céline Moinet is often asked why she decided to become an oboe player. She was adamant: she did not want to play a brass or stringed instrument or even a piano – it had to be woodwind. After having begun, as most children do, with the recorder, she turned at age 7 to the oboe, which had captivated her from the word go. On her new album she takes a look at Johann Sebastian Bach: "Here, the oboe becomes the narrator."

Together with the prizewinning instrumental ensemble l’arte del mondo under Werner Ehrhardt she combines a historically-informed orchestral sound with her modern Marigaux oboe. The musicians have recorded Bach's three oboe concertos: BWV 1059, 1053r and 1055 as well as the sinfonias to the cantatas "Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen" and "Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis" in which the solo oboe is the focus. "Bach's cantatas were my first port of call. They are a rich, sophisticated source of literature for oboists; one might say they are the quintessence of his music," says Moinet. Following on from her last album centred on Schumann's Romances she enters a very different sound world this time round, though not one that is a stranger to her: she heard Alessandro Marcello's oboe concerto very early on, the second movement of which Bach ornamented. "I have strong childhood memories of the work."

On her new album "Bach: Oboe Concertos" Céline Moinet takes a look at Johann Sebastian Bach. Together with the instrumental ensemble l'arte del mondo, which plays on historical instruments, she dedicates herself to the three oboe concertos BWV 1059, 1053 and 1055 by Bach as well as the symphonies of the cantatas "Weinen, Klagen, Sorgen, Zagen" and "Ich hatte viel Bekümmernis", in which the solo oboe is in focus. "Here the oboe becomes the narrator," says Moinet.