BACH Concertos for Solo Harpsichord: BWV 972-93, 975-76, 978, 980 (after Vivaldi); 974 (after A. Marcello); 979 (after Torrelli); 981 (after B. Marcello); 977, 983, 986, 985 (after Telemann); 982, 984, 987 (after Ernst). Prelude and Fugue in a, BWV 894 • Elizabeth Farr (hpd) • NAXOS 8572006-07 (2 CDs: 150:35)


This recording hit me like a ton of bricks in three ways. First, there is the music itself, not actually by J.S. Bach but rather transcriptions he made for harpsichord of concertos by Vivaldi, Torelli, Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello, Johann Ernst, Telemann, and unknown composers, in addition to his own Prelude and Fugue in A Minor. Second, there is the extraordinarily high quality of Elizabeth Farr’s performances, dramatic, nuanced, and extraordinarily colorful. And third, there is the sound of the instrument, a rare Baroque-era harpsichord with a 16’ set of strings as well as damper and sustain pedals. When this CD first started pouring out of my speakers, I thought I was listening to Wanda Landowska in digital stereo. It turns out that such fabulous beasts did exist, after all, in the Baroque era, in fact from as far back as the 16th century. Well, well, well. It turns out that Landowska, who has been lambasted for more than half a century for her “grotesque,” “gargantuan-sounding” instruments, was on the right track after all. Not having an authentic instrument to play, she simply had Pleyel create one for her. Granted, it had a grand piano frame because she was a touring musician and even a newly minted harpsichord with 16’ strings would have gotten pummeled on trains, but the sound was not that far removed from this.


Farr is also an interesting annotator. In order to save space I refer you to her liner notes, which explain why Bach transcribed 22 concertos by primarily Italian composers for harpsichord (six of them are for two harpsichords). The key to the project was young Prince Johann Ernst, the nephew of Duke Wilhelm, who in fact composed three of the concertos transcribed here. The young prince, an outstanding musician, wanted them to play on his instrument. Bach was willing to oblige for one particular reason: By writing out these concertos he could study their composing methods, and apply what he learned to his own “Italianate” music.


Farr’s playing is in the style of Leonhardt and Kipnis, using a great deal of rubato—some of it obvious, some of it quite subtle—to break up the very regular rhythms. I love this style. It is antithetical to British harpsichordists like Trevor Pinnock (whom I also highly admire), but very much in line with the type of “hesitating” style that Bach himself later employed in so many solo harpsichord works, a style he undoubtedly picked up from his friend and older colleague Buxtehude. She also plays very dramatically—heavy chording and rich textures when emulating the full tutti of the orchestral passages, lighter and airier in slow movements and when emulating solo passages. This took me some getting used to, but I came to enjoy this approach.


Some listeners may feel cheated that only one work (the Prelude and Fugue) is actually by Bach, but as a compendium of Baroque style transcribed by a musical genius, played to perfection and stunningly recorded, this set is very highly recommended.


FANFARE: Lynn René Bayley

Johann Sebastian Bach's flute sonatas are chamber music repertoire of rare quality. The six sonatas are all very different from one another in both style and character, and they provide a musical material to explore in depth, to live with and to discover new elements to over a whole lifetime. It has taken a certain amount of courage for these three young musicians at an early stage in their careers to choose to record this particularly well-known repertoire. Their aim with this recording has been to play as they, at this point in their lives, feel that the music must be played. They want each moment, tone or phrase to exhibit complete conviction in it's interpretation, as a result of their ensemble's performance, based on impulses and inspiration between the musicians.

This CD of the Italian harpsichordist and organist Maurizio Croci is dedicated to keys works of Bach, which were designed for both organ and harpsichord. Frequently Bach transformed his compositions between the two keyboard instruments back and forth in order to get a better understanding of the relevant technical and idiomatic possibilities and limitations. As a keyboardist, Bach was admired by all who had the fortune to hear him and was the envy of the virtuosi of his day. The cornerstone of this album is Bach’s thirty variations. This admirable work includes a regular four part Fugue, several extremely brilliant Variations for two Claviers, and concludes with a Quodlibet, as it is called. Born in 1958 in Melk, Wolfgang Gluxam studied harpsichord with Ton Koopman at the Sweelinck Conservatory in Amsterdam and organ with Alfred Mitterhofer at the Vienna Conservatory. He has won prizes at international competitions, and has been teaching harpsichord at the Vienna Music University since 1985.

The Sun King Louis XIV, who, in the truest sense of the word, had all of France and the court of Versailles dancing around him, died exactly 300 years ago, in 1715, a time when dance, music and theater all experienced an unprecedented flourishing. On her new Genuin label CD, harpsichordist Rebecca Maurer, playing a historical Ruckers harpsichord from Neuchâtel, weaves pieces by d’Anglebert, F. Couperin, Le Roux, and others from the most brilliant epoch of the harpsichord to form a musical tapestry rich in allusions and cross-references. A true musical journey into a golden age...

• Mostly premiere recordings of Baroque Recorder Sonatas from the collection of Viceroy of Naples • The greatest discovery of the collection is certainly the sonata by Adolf Hasse, then Europe's leading opera composer • These works are among the highlights of late Baroque music

Keyboard Cubed is Cervetti’s second recording for Navona and takes the listener into a world of kinetic and emotionally charged sound forged from 3 keyboard instruments. Sometimes it is the pianoforte, the double keyboard of the harpsichord and the organ.

Johann Krieger (1652-1735) won the esteem of Handel, no less, for the skill of his counterpoint and the inventive power of his organ music. For the theorist Mattheson, Krieger was likewise the pre-eminent exponent of complex counterpoint in his generation. Yet music-lovers have hitherto been able to sample Krieger's work only in excerpted compilations. The present album occupies a unique place in the catalogue as by far the most extensive recorded survey of Krieger, containing his two published collections of keyboard music. Album 1 is filled with the six harpsichord suites which were published in 1697 in Krieger's home town of Nürnberg, though by then the composer himself was employed as an organist in the Saxon town of Zittau: a post he filled for 54 years until his death. The Suites are themselves prefaced by an elaborate fantasia, and they contain the standard sequence of dance numbers - allemandes, courantes, sarabandes and gigues. Published two years later, the Anmuthige Clavier-Übung was probably written earlier, and functions as a small library of preludes, ricercares, fugues, fantasias, toccatas and a chaconne, which are not grouped together by key. Both collections make clear that Krieger deserves to rank with Fischer, Kuhnau and Pachelbel as one of the outstanding German keyboard composers of the generation before Bach. Boccaccio has paid careful attention to the details of old fingering techniques; the resultant variety in phrasing and articulation gives new life to figurations that with a more modern legato approach can seem plain. As his own booklet note explains, he has also taken considered decisions about when discreet ornamentation can enhance the music's impact and when to let Sweelinck's notes

When Julian Olevksy made his first tour of the Orient in 1959, the Tokyo Shimbun declared him to be "the most exciting violinist to appear in Japan next to Heifetz and Oistrakh." - as his remarkable performances on this release of violin sonatas by G. F. Handel and Domenico Scarlatti so eloquently bear witness. Julian Olevsky was born in Berlin on May 7, 1926. The son of a professional violinist, he began his studies at 7. In 1935, mindful of the growing danger in Germany, the family moved to Buenos Aires. He made his recital debut at 10 and his orchestral debut at 12 in Buenos Aires under the baton of Fritz Busch. In 1947 he immigrated to the United States. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s he performed widely, touring and appearing with the finest world orchestras. He recorded extensively for the American label Westminster. Olevsky had a distinguished career as a teacher as well. In 1967 he was appointed Resident Artist and subsequently Professor of Violin at the University of Massachusetts. Olevsky died in Amherst on May 25, 1985. The eminent violin critic Henry Roth, in his survey of the great violinists said of him that he was "a brilliant virtuoso, a fine tonalist with glowing temperament and a tasteful musician and stylist."

This is Volume 10 in Centaur's complete traversal of the keyboard works of Francois Couperin, performed by Mark Kroll. This is a landmark edition of these complete works. Mark Kroll has made a specialty of Couperin throughout his long and distinguished career. Mark Kroll has performed on four continents as a harpsichordist and fortepianist, in both solo recital and as a collaborative chamber musician. Highlights include an appearance as the official guest of the city of Barcelona; featured soloist in Germany's Regensburg Early Music Festival, France's Festival Ambronay and the Bordeaux Hummel Festival; two concerts for the Czech Republic's Prague Spring Festival; and recitals at Lisbon's Gulbenkian Foundation, Rome's Conservatorio Santa Caecilia and Associazione Musicale Romana, Poland's Dni Bachowski, and Slovenija's Radovljica Festival.