Dances are among the valuable “raw materials” that composers of all epochs have incorporated into their works. Baroque suites are based on dance forms from various countries, classical symphonies usually contain a minuet or a dance movement, and in the nineteenth century, composers of emerging musical nations not only made use of folk songs, but also, and above all, of the dances of their native regions in order to form an independent language.

With this album, harpist Sarah Christ shows that dance is as rich in moods as it is in forms: on her CD Un bal – named after the second movement of Hector Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique – we hear the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, which moves wonderfully freely within the framework of strict baroque models; the melancholy elegance in Chopin’s and Debussy’s waltzes; the folklore and rusticity in the pieces of Ferenc Farkas and Manuel de Falla; and the melancholy of Astor Piazzolla’s tangos.