Michael Poll: 7-String Bach

Hailed as 'Masterful' by Gramophone Magazine, Michael Poll's 7-String Bach has been streamed over 1 million times since its release on Orchid Classics in 2018.

A seven string guitar is a special musical creature: it duplicates the range of the modern guitar plus five notes taken from the double bass. This instrument makes it possible to play Bach’s music in its original register, as he heard it. A guitar, however is not a lute, and this project aims to adapt Bach's music to life here and now in the 21st century. It's a fusion approach to old music that honors the music's rhetorical origins while animating the notes on an historically-inspired modern tool.

According to Michael: 'I am fusing modern instrumental practice with historical techniques and doing it all on an instrument that is built specially for the job by American master luthier Robert Ruck.' Poll continues, 'Bach left manuscripts for two complete instrumental suites for Lute, the predecessor of the modern classical guitar, and on this concert.'