Bach: Trio Sonatas Nos. 1-6, BWV525-530

Originating in Italy, the trio sonata imposed itself as one of the major musical forms of the 18th century. Having been formalised in sharply contrasting movements by Corelli, it seduced composers who found within it a means to develop their thematic ideas and to free themselves from the framework of the suite of dances in a new aesthetic spirit, that of chamber music. It would normally have been executed by 3 musicians at least, each one playing as best he could the melodic line assigned to him. Bach however, never doing things as everybody else, composed a series of six sonatas for the organ, adapting the chamber music style to this quintessential church instrument. Born in 1985, Benjamin Alard is already one of the leading figures of the young baroque generation. In 2004 he won First Prize and the Audience Award at the Bruges International Harpsichord Competition and in 2007 garnered First Prize at the Gottfried-Silbermann International Organ Competition in Freiberg. For his first Alpha recording, he plays the grand organ of the church of Saint-Louis en l'Île, where he was appointed in 2005, a German style instrument conceived by Bernard Aubertin, which is the most recent organ to have been built in Paris.