Italian Concerto (BWV 971) by J. S. Bach | Diego Ares, harpsichord

‘ Oh please, not again!’ used to say to me a good friend every time I played the first bars of this work. The fact is that this work has enjoyed such overwhelming popularity for more than a century that many music lovers are fed up with it. Should we stop playing it? No way! Don’t we still sing the same birthday tune over and over again thousands of times every day of the year in different parts of the world? This piece, so full of cheerfulness, poetry and vitality, is a hymn to our natural disposition for joy - and may it continue to be played for many centuries to come! Audio and video production: Oren Kirschenbaum