There is no shortage of works for marimba. However for musicians like drummer Christoph Sietzen who has a particular affinity with Baroque music adaptations become almost essential. Christoph Sietzen is this season’s featured artist at the Kölner Philharmonie where he performed alongside his colleagues from the Wave Quartet—his former teacher, Bogdan Bacanu, as well as Emiko Uchiyama and Nico Gerstmayer.

The Wave Quartet previously recorded all three double piano concertos by Johann Sebastian Bach in arrangements for four marimbas and orchestra back in 2009. This time the program included the C major concerto BWV 1061, alongside the G minor concerto BWV 1058 for a single piano which itself is an adaptation of the A minor violin concerto. During the Baroque era such adaptations were a common practice; it is likely that the old Bach would have wholeheartedly approved of the Wave versions.

Marimba instead of piano: The Wave Quartet presented Bach adaptations.

Indeed, what is typically performed by two or four pianists was seamlessly distributed here across two or four marimbas without any loss of substance. The audience experienced, with growing fascination, how the characteristic Baroque figurations, cadences, and ornaments emerged beautifully from the large wooden instruments—delivering a light, pointillistic elegance that cannot be achieved on either the harpsichord or modern piano.

Review by Stefan Rütter