The Orchestre de Chambre de Paris is a prestigious ensemble that has made its mark far beyond the French capital. Its director is Austrian violinist Thomas Zehetmair; previous incumbents include American John Nelson, who conducted Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra's Exotic Birds concert just last year.
The marketing for the French orchestra'slatest album, however, stresses its soloists, Sarah and Deborah Nemtanu, posed in smiling confrontation on its cover. The sisters share concertmaster duties with the orchestra and, now in their early 30s, have finally made their recording debut. The programme focuses on Bach, beginning with the inevitable D minor Double Concerto.
The Nemtanus, with simpatico support from conductor Sascha Goetzel, set the style for the whole album with well-sprung tempi and a sharp sense of dialogue, with each other and their orchestral colleagues.
Each sister has her own solo turn. In the E major Concerto, Sarah Nemtanu responds to a stern orchestral Allegro with disarming grace and delicacy, the bite of bow on string keeping any danger of excessive sweetness at bay. Deborah Nemtanu is more forthright in the A minor Concerto, soaring over and through its broad orchestral sweeps.
Two Bach Inventions serve as Baroque bonbons, played in duet, with Deborah Nemtanu on a particularly rich-toned viola.
The 1985 Concerto Grosso no 3 by Alfred Schnittke may come as a shock after 40 agreeable minutes in the security of the 18th century, and I suspect the Russian composer would have liked that.
In less than a minute, what sounds like a lost Brandenburg Finale is brutally interrupted by a great percussive conflagration and, in Schnittke's words, "the museum explodes and we stand in the fragments of the past".
Written to acknowledge anniversaries of Bach, Handel and Scarlatti (all born in 1685), Schutz (1585) and Alban Berg (1885), the Concerto Grosso bristles with quotations, set in shifting and unpredictable soundscapes, including trance-like pages for celeste and harpsichord.
It is a marvellous adventure in a musical theme park; best of all, you may return to Bach with ears newly primed -- and once again, Schnittke would have approved.
Verdict: French sisters venture dauntlessly into Baroque and beyond
