Viviane Chassot - Johann Sebastian Bach: Pure Bach

The music of Johann Sebastian Bach has brought accordionist Viviane Chassot out of a serious personal crisis; since she discovered how well the music of the Thomaskantor can be reproduced on the accordion, she has now created a Bach album - after Haydn and Mozart.

With works from the Woltemperierte Clavier, the well-known ''Italian Concerto'' as well as other suites and partitas.

The artist explains: ''The liveliness and power may jump out at us first when we hear Bach's music. But the composer did not have an easy life and anything but a straight path through life - he had to put up with many strokes of fate, became an orphan at the age of ten, lost his first wife at an early age; children also died. Death accompanied him throughout his life - and I think that these aspects of pain and loss always resonate in his music, even when it is superficially dancing or simply cheerful''.

Bach and accordion - this combination is not exactly obvious. But Viviane Chassot says: ''What is very much in favour of the accordion as a possible instrument for Bach's music for keyboard instruments are the wind-like shaping possibilities that I have thanks to the bellows. With it and with differentiated articulation, I can make the music breathe and speak; I achieve dynamics and a variety of colours through diverse registration possibilities. And the virtuoso dance movements are given a musical - even archaic - touch on the accordion''.