Bach / Cresens: Betsubara – Gwen Cresens

There is always room for dessert. In Japanese, betsubara literally means “a second stomach” – the room we somehow find for something delicious, even after a satisfying meal. It expresses a desire born not of need, but of pleasure, curiosity, and the promise of one more discovery. This idea became the creative impulse behind Betsubara and the recording that surrounds it.

At its heart is the artistic partnership between accordionist-composer Gwen Cresens and conductor David Ramael. Ramael approaches Bach from a background deeply rooted in the classical tradition; Cresens brings a musical language shaped by classical music, improvisation, jazz, chanson, and tango. Bach became their meeting place: music of extraordinary discipline that continually invites imagination.

Together with Boho Strings Antwerp, they explore the natural affinity between Bach’s music and the accordion. Unlike the harpsichord, the accordion can sustain and shape a note after it has sounded, yet its articulation preserves the clarity essential to Bach’s counterpoint. This changes the relationship between soloist and ensemble: the accordion can merge with the string texture, emerge from it, or extend a line beyond its expected weight and duration. The result is not simply a change of instrument, but a different way of hearing the music’s internal movement.

Their exploration of Bach gradually led from interpretation to creation. Cresens began developing original cadenzas within the concertos – spaces in which Bach’s musical language could encounter his own. Ideas discovered through improvisation were gathered, reshaped, and developed into a new work.

Those ideas became Betsubara, Cresens’s concerto for accordion and string orchestra. Rather than quoting Bach, the piece carries traces of him forward: a rhythmic gesture becomes a dance, a melodic fragment changes direction, and a familiar harmony opens into a new sound world. Bach remains present – sometimes recognizable, sometimes absorbed into Cresens’s own voice.

The concerto unfolds in three movements: Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner. Their titles give the work a playful frame, while reflecting the appetite that set the entire project in motion: each encounter with Bach created the desire to continue, to venture further, and ultimately to compose something new.

Betsubara celebrates what can happen when musicians from different worlds listen to one another – when admiration becomes exploration, and music from the past awakens an appetite for something new.