This new release is a celebration of the so-called “Hispanic” year, 2015, the 400th anniversary of the birth of Saint Teresa of Jesus. The Boys Choir of the Escolanila del Escorial has chosen to celebrate enthusiastically with the interpretation of songs from different regions of Spain and countries of South America. They have also included several works from other European countries, most of which are traditional folk songs with choral arrangements. King Philip II announced in 1567 that the Monastery of the Escorial would also house a seminary for boys. The role of this seminary and its choir was to provide song for the liturgical ceremonies and celebrations of the Royal Monastery. Today, the choir has approximately 45 boarding members between the ages of nine and seventeen, hailing from various regions of Spain. The group sings in all events that take place in the Basilica of The Royal Monastery.

Among J.S. Bach' 200 or so surviving church cantatas, these four for solo soprano include the popular Jauchzet Gott in allen Landen, in which singer and solo trumpet engage in thrilling displays of virtuosity.

Guitar aficionados need to hear Escobar’s absolutely stunning playing of un-hackneyed music.

Outside a small group of specialists the music of Chile is pretty much unknown in Europe. Of the names mentioned on this disc only Victor Jara and Violeta Parra can claim to be – or have been – anything approaching household names and then only within a more popular genre with political and/or social undertones.

The five composers represented here – four of them contemporaries – have assimilated elements from popular music or folk music and amalgamated them with academic compositional principles. The outcome is a programme with evocative rhythms, beautiful melodies and in some cases harsh harmonies.

What is also evident from the outset is the technical flair and brilliance of the playing. José Antonio Escobar is a fabulous guitarist, whose playing is so assured that it sounds more or less improvised. It sounds effortless – and that is not a euphemism for bland and unengaged – but he gives the impression that technical intricacies are no big deal; he can concentrate on shaping the music.

Javier Contreras is the youngest of the composers on this disc and he is also the boldest, harmonically speaking. Euclidica is virtuoso music, also requiring the player to treat the guitar as a percussion instrument. That also goes for Tonada del Retorno and Tonada a mi madre, which is fluent and vital music. The homage to Victor Jara is tranquil and here the composer has adjusted to the style in which Jara himself played.

Horacio Salinas was in the 1980s leader of the group Inti-illmani, which cooperated with John Williams; Cristalino is a reminder of that relationship. It is a movement from a longer work that would have been interesting to hear complete. It is beautiful and melodious, changing directions constantly.

Antonio Restucci’s music is also virtuosic and he has a nice feeling for melody. It is rhythmically attractive and there is more than a whiff of Argentina about it.

With Juan Antonio Sánchez we find this mix of popular and serious elements mentioned above very pronounced. It is paired with a sense of improvisation, which turns out to be truer than I first understood. For this is exactly the case: he allows the player freedom to use his imagination. Chiloética has much of this sense all through, though I don’t know to what degree Escobar plays ad lib. The guitar sonata, like so much else on this disc very recent music, has an opening movement that is dominated by the rhythmic elements, often jagged and ‘backward’. The second, Dulce, is exactly that: soft and contemplative. The third movement is quickly walking but with sudden pauses, and in the finale rhythm is again to the fore – most of it is percussive.

The sonata is a tribute to Violeta Parra, who is herself represented by 5 Anticuecas from 1961. These pieces were not written down. They were transcribed from her recordings after her death. One can hear phrases that are reminiscent of her songs but by and large this is music that stands out as highly original, not sophisticated but ‘real’. The simile may limp but this might be seen as a Chilean variant of blues. No. 5 is especially intense and – yes, bluesy.

The last word goes again to Sánchez, whose Tonada por despedita is intimate and melodious in a popular vein. One almost expects the player to start singing. As in every good encore he adds zest to the end through a sudden dramatic outburst.

Norbert Kraft and Bonnie Silver have provided ideal sound as usual. Juan Pablo González, Instituto de Música, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, gives much useful information on the composers and their music, even though I wish he had been allotted more space, since this is a field that is largely unknown to me.

Guitar aficionados need to hear Escobar’s absolutely stunning playing. Having played the disc three or four times I have come to terms with the music and found that it opens up and has something new to offer every time.

-- Göran Forsling, MusicWeb International

Mozart: Piano Quartets Nos. 1 & 2

ESSENTIAL CLASSICS:RAMPAL

Paganini: Lucca Sonatas, Vol. 2

This documentary highlights the violin world of Cremona. Cremona has been made famous by names such as Amati, Guarneri and Stradivari. In this DVD, Salvatore Accardo shows us fascinating insights into the City of Cremona, highlighting the violin makers’ craftsmanship and also showing us and playing some of the most prestigious instruments kept in the Lombard city.

Sound Format: LPCM 2.0
Picture Format: 16:9
Timing: 52 Minutes
Subtitles: English, French, German, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese
Region Code: 0 (All Region)

Lorenzino del Liuto was one of the most famous and accomplished virtuosi of the lute, as well as a composer who strongly influenced Italian and foreign lute literature.

This Blu-ray Disc is only playable on Blu-ray Disc players and not compatible with standard DVD players.

Also available on standard DVD

A brand new production of ‘Tannhäuser’ from the Staatsoper Berlin, conducted by Daniel Barenboim, staged and choreographed by Sasha Waltz, who has brought to the stage this Romantic Wagner opera with a star cast of some of today's best Wagnerian singers: Peter Seiffert in the title role, Réne Pape as Landgraf and Peter Mattei as Wolfram, Ann Petersen sings Elisabeth and Marina Prudenskaya is Venus.

HD recording: Staatsoper im Schiller Theater, Berlin – 04/2014
BLURAY Running time: 192 min.
Booklet: French / English / German, Subtitles: French / English / German
16/9, Full HD, Audio:PCM 2.0, DTS HD Master Audio

Classical Music

Classical Music

Classical Music

In Spain's Golden Century, sacred and secular repertoire drew their inspiration from a unique popular source. Guilemette Laurens highlights the diversity of a contrasted language full of colours and moods, bright or serious, bitter or flamboyant, and constantly illustrating the profundity so characteristic of Spain.

Classical Music

A beautifully packaged box of the complete Grieg piano music on BIS and a fantastic deal at 12 CDs for the price of 3.

There is so much here that one can explore these works for years and never truly get to the bottom of them... a collection of gems that sparkle from any angle.

Eva Knardahl's recordings of Grieg's music for solo piano – here completed with recordings by Love Derwinger of the works unpublished during Grieg's lifetime – have been a milestone ever since they were first released on LP at the end of the 1970s. The Norwegian pianist's interpretations of the music of her countryman blew away decades worth of cobwebs and caused many to reconsider an oeuvre of which one part was so well-known as to risk becoming banal and another was all but unknown. At the time of the first release one reviewer likened Knardahl to ‘an Alicia de Larrocha of the North, who makes her instrument ring out like a cathedral’. When the recordings were re-released on CD, another wrote that her performances ‘suggest that there's a lot more to Grieg's several hundred little pieces than pretty lyricism ... She brings a forthrightness and color to the Norwegian master – even a countrified robustness – that few have suspected is there. Knardahl's performance of the famous Piano Concerto is a rendering full of grandeur, poetry and power. She can really stand comparison with any of her rivals.’

FULL REVIEW

Norwegian-born pianist Eva Knardahl, who died in late 2006, had a very long career. Well-known in her native Norway, she made her debut at the age of 12 performing with the Oslo Philharmonic Orchestra. Throughout her life, she recorded a variety of works for piano, paying special attention to the works of Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. This box set contains 12 CDs, covering all of Grieg’s compositions for piano.

Knardahl performs on the first ten discs in the set, and Love Derwinger is the pianist for the recordings on discs 11 and 12. This is a repackaging of individual discs that were released over the years, with the Knardahl recordings made between 1977 and 1980, and the Derwinger recordings dating from 1993. It seems unfair that only Knardahl gets her name on the front of the box; Derwinger is credited only on the back. Knaredahly’s recordings were issued first on LP and then reissued on CD in 1987.

The set contains a comprehensive booklet in English, Swedish, German and French, nearly 180 pages long - about 30 pages of text for each language. Fortunately, unlike many other Bis booklets, this one printed in a font that does not require a magnifying glass to read.

Grieg's piano music is one of the monuments of keyboard music, and probably deserves to be regarded much more highly. While not as intense as Beethoven's piano sonatas, or the works of Chopin or Liszt; while not as lofty as the vast output of Bach or that of Mozart, Grieg's piano music combines not only a unique impressionistic approach to the piano, but also elements of folk music from his native Norway. On top of that, many of the tunes in the short pieces are so engaging that you'll find yourself humming them.

Grieg's piano works are mostly made up of short pieces. His 66 lyric pieces, were composed throughout his career but there are also collections of Norwegian folk songs, peasant dances and other works. With just one piano sonata, and one piano concerto - but what a concerto! - his oeuvre is largely one of miniatures. But the size of these works in no way detracts from their interest and force. One can simply listen to the first of the Lyric Pieces, Arietta, to understand just how subtle Grieg's compositional style is. In a simple-sounding ballad of just over a minute, he manages not only to paint a melancholy picture, but also demonstrates that his harmonies are unique and unforgettable. This is a brief piano piece that is more a song without words than a statement of keyboard music.

The three discs of lyric pieces span his entire career, so listening to them in order offers not just a journey through melody, but also an opportunity to listen to how Grieg's style grew over time. His Op. 4 no. 3, Melody, has an intense, melodramatic sound, as does, for example, Op. 54, no. 1, Shepherd's Boy, which is a dark work. Some pieces have such lightness that one can only smile when listening to them. In a way, however, it is fitting that the final work in this series, Op. 71, no. 7, Forgetting, is a reworking of one of the earliest lyric pieces, Waltz, Op. 12 no. 2. Grieg comes full circle with this last lyric piece, showing the subtle ways in which his music evolved.

While there is pleasure enough in listening to the progression of Grieg's style through the first three discs of lyric pieces, one can start again with disc 4, which begins another examination of Grieg's career in chronological order. While it makes sense to group the lyric pieces on the first three discs - which also corresponds to the original release of these recordings on individual discs - it might have been more logical to reorder all the music so the twelve discs flowed in chronological sequence, rather than having two "sets" within the box.

Beginning with the earliest pieces, his Op. 1, Four Piano Pieces, his Poetic Tone-Pictures (Op. 3) and so on, the set traverses his output. In spite of the different names given to groups of works, Grieg's tone does not vary a great deal. All the pieces cover a range of tones from melancholy to exuberant, from bittersweet to pastoral.

An exception can be found in his sets of Norwegian folk songs, where he arranged the raw material of his country's music heritage for solo piano. These helped gain him greater notice, and are one of the finest examples of folk-music brought into the concert hall. There are dozens of such works, many of them tiny gems, others more substantial.

Grieg also wrote one piano sonata, which is somewhat different, on the surface, from his smaller works. A true romantic sonata, it nevertheless features his now familiar song-like approach to music, especially in its second movement. This sonata was and is often performed, yet it is surprising that he did not write another. He remained more interested in his miniatures though he also wrote orchestral and chamber works. In the same manner, he composed just the one piano concerto, which is an extremely popular and oft-performed work. It is played here by Knardahl, with the original version also performed by Love Derwinger.

One work that stands out is the Ballade in G minor, Op. 24, the longest amongst Grieg's pianistic output at just over 20 minutes in this recording. This comprises a series of 14 variations on a Norwegian folk song. Grieg composed this piece after the deaths of his parents in the autumn of 1875. He was overcome with grief, and that comes through in this densely emotional work Knardahl plays it with her emotions at her fingertips.

Some of the pieces are transcriptions from Grieg's larger orchestral works, such as Peer Gynt, Sigurd Jorsalfar, and the Holberg Suite. Grieg very much enjoyed making piano reductions of these works, and his transcriptions shed interesting light on the larger works from which they derive.

The last two discs contain works not published during Grieg's lifetime. Whether the early version of the Piano Concerto, alternate versions of a few works, or some very early pieces that he never deemed interesting enough for publication, these two discs in essence offer the extras or out-takes of Grieg's piano output.

Across the 787 minutes of this set, I have to confess to a preference for Grieg's shorter pieces over the piano sonata, concerto and Ballade. From almost any time in his career, from his lyric pieces to the Norwegian folk songs, from his "short pieces" to his transcriptions of his own songs, dipping into this astounding range of work is never disappointing. In the same way that Schubert rarely wrote a mediocre lied, Grieg has very few weak piano pieces. You can dip into these works at any time and the gods of shuffle will pull out an interesting juxtaposition of pieces that, in spite of when they were composed, fit together organically. There is so much here - again, the comparison to Schubert's lieder comes to mind - that one can explore these works for years and never truly get to the bottom of them. While the last two discs contain some works that are, perhaps, minor, the remainder of this set is a collection of gems that sparkle from any angle.

The recording quality of these discs is excellent, and the piano sounds present without too much reverb, though the Derwinger recordings are a bit hollower than the Knardahl discs. The recording hall adds a different type of reverb, and Derwinger plays a Steinway to Knardahl’s Bösendorfer. For an interesting recording, you might also want to listen to Leif Ove Andsnes' selection of Lyric Pieces played on Grieg's own piano. Given the price and completeness of this set, and the quality of the performances, there is little reason for you to hesitate. Even if you've only sampled Grieg's works in the past, this budget set is a fine reason to discover the full range of his piano compositions. Should you not want all this Grieg, however, the individual discs are still available from BIS, and the three CDs of Lyric Pieces would be a great purchase.

-- Kirk McElhearn, MusicWeb International

The fifth volume in this highly acclaimed series, conducted by The Sixteen’s Associate Conductor, Eamonn Dougan, celebrates the music of Polish composer Marcin Mielczewski. Together with Bartlomiej Pekiel, Mielczewski was amongst the most notable of 17th-century Polish composers and was recognised as a leader among his contemporaries. Influenced by the many Italian composers who graced the Polish courts in the 1600s, Mielczewski was a prolific composer. The cross-section of works recorded here shows an exceptionally accomplished musician at work, one whose music deserves a wider audience and who can confidently stand alongside the maestri who came before him and from whom he learnt his craft.

On this second disc of the Emperor Quartet’s survey of Britten’s music for string quartet, Alla Marcia appears as an interlude between the first and last of Britten’s three published string quartets. The first disc in this series of three was released in 2010, and included a performance of the Second String Quartet described as “stupendous” in Classic FM Magazine and “magnificent” in Scherzo, while a Fono Forum reviewer likened it to “an entire cosmos of colours and nuances.”

If the string quartet can claim Haydn as its father, the wind quintet has two - Anton Rejcha and the slightly younger Franz Danzi (1763-1826). Between them they provided this new combination with a large repertoire (Rejcha alone composed no less than 24 quintets) and set the mould for composers to come. Thereby they also came to contribute significantly to the development of a new type of wind playing without which the classical/romantic symphony orchestra sound would be unimaginable. Danzi trained as a cellist and composer - by his contemporaries he was held in high regard for his successful operas, instrumental concertos and sacred works - but it was probably his experiences as a conductor, chiefly at the Karlsruhe court theatre, which formed the basis of his fine understanding of wind instruments and of ensemble playing. This was recognised at the original release of these discs, when the Gramophone's reviewer wrote that the music 'has great charm and polish, enhanced by the persuasive craftsmanship of its scoring.' But even more than the music - described in Fanfare as pieces which 'could turn Mozart-lovers into lovers of Mozart-loving Danzi' - it was the performances by the Berlin Philharmonic Wind Quintet and (in the three piano quintets) Love Derwinger that moved the reviewers to use superlatives. The French magazine Repértoire claimed that the interpretations were 'luminous: alternately flowing and spirited, dreamy and boisterous; of an exhilarating virtuosity, tinged with poetry and in full gala dress.' Here, then, is a great opportunity to discover the birth of a genre in the best possible company!

Until this recording arrived for review I had been unaware of how good the Australian Chamber Orchestra was. What a superb group of musicians! With the exception of the pianist Polina Leschenko all other participants are members of this fine orchestra including violin soloist Richard Tognetti who also leads the Octet. As usual BIS have blessed the project with a first class recording that allows all details to tell and yet to remain within a believable acoustic space.

If I were to pick any holes I would rather like to have heard the Concerto on a period piano instead of the modern concert grand which has a good deal more power than is required for this essentially 18th century music. The thorough notes by Horst A. Scholz tell us that Mendelssohn composed the Concerto for Violin and Piano in May 1823 at the ripe old age of 14. It is less the antecedent of Hummel that one hears than the influence of Carl Philip Emmanuel and even Johann Christian Bach. There is no problem whatever with a young protégé emulating his predecessors when it is done so beautifully. The concerto is a joy to hear providing you do not expect the Mendelssohn of the Violin Concerto in E minor of 1844 or of the mature symphonies. Both soloists play with wonderful accuracy and joie de vivre. The three movement form is absolutely to the classical standard except for the considerable length of the opening Allegro which runs for nearly 18 minutes, a length even Mozart rarely reached.

The real shock is that only two years elapsed before the entirely characteristic Octet for Strings was composed. Here at 16 we have a fully fledged Mendelssohn. Despite the large number of earlier chamber pieces this was his real breakthrough and a complete masterpiece. The form of the double quartet is not unknown, Spohr wrote four but the first of these only predated Mendelssohn's Octet by two years and is far more a work for two string quartets, as the name implies. Mendelssohn composes for a full integrated group of four violins, two violas and two cellos. He even states on the title page that the work must be played 'in the style of a symphony'. Few other pieces like this are in the repertoire even today. The eight strings of the Australian Chamber Orchestra play with finesse and vitality such that they fear no comparisons with the competition, even the most prestigious. There being almost no repertoire for a string octet all performances on record are by groups brought together, or extracted, for the occasion.

Those seeking a recording should consider the present issue very seriously because the coupling is unusual and the whole is better recorded that any other I know.

-- Dave Billinge, MuscWeb International

Martin Fröst displays versatility and staggering virtuosity: eventful Anders Hillborg, assertive Holmboe, atmospheric Karin Rehnqvist and jolly Crusell.

– BBC Music Magazine

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Testifying to the multi-facetted talent of Martin Fröst as well as to the different responses that the clarinet has awakened in composers over the years, the present compilation brings together four concertante works in recordings that have all been previously released on separate discs. The opening work, Fröst’s fellow-Swede Anders Hillborg’s ‘Peacock Tales’, is the longest of the four, as well as being something of a calling card for Fröst. It was composed for him in 1998, and on his initiative it incorporates choreographical elements and lighting effects when performed in concert. Hillborg has since made several versions of the work, and Martin Fröst has performed it numerous times worldwide in its different incarnations. The disc Dances to a Black Pipe (BIS-1863) includes a shorter chamber version for clarinet, piano and strings, but the present recording is of the original version, with large symphony orchestra. If Peacock Tales focuses on the soloist, the opposite might be said of the Danish composer Vagn Holmboe’s Concerto No.3 from 1942. The work is one in a series of 13 concertos for one or more solo instruments and small orchestra, and it would seem that the composer, by not mentioning the solo instrument in the titles of these works, wished to signal a particular concern in regards to the relationship between soloist and orchestra. Writing about her On a Distant Shore, subtitled ‘poem for clarinet and chamber orchestra’, the Swedish composer Karin Rehnqvist discusses the same problem more directly: ‘How does one arrive at a relationship between soloist and orchestra which is interesting and musically rewarding for everyone: soloist, orchestra and audience?’ Such concerns were probably of less concern to Finnish-Swedish composer and clarinet virtuoso Bernhard Crusell. Active during the beginning of the 19th century, Crusell is today mainly known for his clarinet concertos and clarinet quartets, but here Martin Fröst’s clarinet jauntily guides us through one of his earliest works: Introduction, Theme and Variations on a Swedish Air – the air in question being a drinking song popular at the time.

Fuchs’s distinctive voice, flair for orchestral colours and sheer lyricism shine through.

Kenneth Fuchs is fortunate indeed to have not one but two discs of his music recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra. The first, in 2003, was nominated for two Grammys in 2005 and the second, recorded in 2006, should do well too, such is the quality of both the music and music-making. Holding it all together in the orchestral pieces and the mixed quintet is conductor JoAnn Falletta, who made such a strong impression in her recent disc of Respighi (review).

United Artists, the first item on the disc, was written specifically for the LSO as a gesture of thanks for their earlier recording of Fuchs’s works (Naxos 8.559224). At its core is a four-note motif, presented first in the Coplandesque opening fanfare. But this isn’t derivative music; indeed, the composer’s distinctive ‘voice’ is evident from the outset, and his flair for orchestral colours and sheer lyricism shine through in this atmospheric opener.

Quiet in the land is another of those vast musical landscapes that might provoke comparisons with Copland, yet Fuchs’s evocation of the Midwestern Plains just as the Iraq war was beginning is rather more complex and ambiguous in its sentiments. As the composer writes in the liner notes, ‘I wondered how quiet the spirit of our land might be’.

Even without this programme the opening bars hint at harmony, subtly undermined by vague discord - just listen to that quiet, agitated figure that begins at 1:30, beneath the more lyrical and expansive melody above. It is such lucid, ‘hear-through’ writing, yet it’s full of warmth. The members of the LSO manage to bring out both these aspects of the score, blending precision with feeling. And what a haunting close, too.

The recording venue – St Luke’s in London’s Old Street – is very well captured by the engineers, with no hint of brittleness or edge. The musicians seem ideally placed, too, which is particularly welcome in Fire, Ice, and Summer Bronze for brass quintet. Subtitled an ’Idyll ... after two works on paper by Helen Frankenthaler’ the first movement yokes together two eternal opposites – fire (the restless first section) and ice (the more muted second section).

There seems to be an underlying creative tension in some of these pieces, perhaps an attempt to reconcile musical and emotional extremes. For instance, in Summer Bronze the music is strangely mercurial – now lyrical, now dissonant, now both. But it’s that other dichotomy, between outward virtuosity and inner feeling, that these seasoned players – always secure, always poised – convey so well.

Based on a painting by Jackson Pollock, Autumn Rhythm does contain some jazzy snippets, but the emphasis seems to be on sonorities, with long, lyrical melodic lines and, at times, a quirky bass. It is a strangely ‘in-between’ piece; to use the autumn analogy, summer is not quite done, yet winter is on its way. In his notes Fuchs describes how the two states are drawn together and, indeed, how one becomes the other: ‘An unusual aspect of this composition is that in its final section the flute, oboe, and clarinet metamorphose into their lower – perhaps autumnal – counterparts, the alto flute, English horn, and bass clarinet.’ It’s a remarkable sleight of hand, deftly constructed and seamlessly executed.

Canticle of the Sun – a hymn tune based on 13th-century texts by St Francis of Assisi – is built on a four-note motif. Written for the LSO’s principal horn player, Timothy Jones, this 20-minute gem has a radiant, all-embracing optimism that is just irresistible. Indeed, it is not unlike a stained glass window, all those fragments of high colour glowing in the light behind. But at the centre of it all is Jones’s supple and passionate playing, surely as seductive a performance of this piece as we are ever likely to hear.

As with Respighi’s Church Windows, Falletta displays a sense of line and phrase that is most welcome in this music. And while I’ve grumbled about the sound on some Naxos releases I’m prepared to eat humble pie on this one. The engineers have done an exceptional job capturing the sound of the LSO at St Luke’s; what a pleasant change from the dry-as-dust Barbican.

Early days, I know, but this could be one of my discs of 2008.

Dan Morgan, MusicWeb International

Classical Music

The two works on this disc date from the early to mid 1920s and very much belong to the "new objectivity" of composers such as Weill and early Hindemith. Indeed, when listening to the Cello Concerto, the latter's Kammermusik series comes readily to mind. The Dance Suite, inventively scored for flute, clarinet, violins, viola, double bass, and percussion, is quite a substantial piece as well, lasting nearly half an hour and featuring a typically manic, highly stylized take on theoretically popular music. Both works are extremely acerbic harmonically, often verging on atonality, but at the same time quite recognizably melodic and often shot through with a curiously haunting, bittersweet lyricism.


In short, these works are very much redolent of their time and place, and if the period or the idiom interests you, then so will these very polished and well recorded performances. There's really nothing more that needs to be said: the players are uniformly fine, with cellist Christian Poltéra making the concerto sound as close to effortless as it probably ever can. The music may be gnarly, but it's also highly virtuosic and often fun (particularly in the Dance Suite), and this latter quality comes through quite effectively. In sum, this is a fine disc, but one for specialized tastes.
--David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday.com

Classical Music

Even before the publication of the first collection of Clavier-Sonaten für Kenner und Liebhaber in 1779, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach began composing works intended for a follow-up. This time he expanded the original concept, however, and included not just three sonatas, but also three rondos 'for the fortepiano'. In his treatment of the rondo-form, Bach was – as always – a mold-breaker and in the ‘Kenner und Liebhaber’ rondos the refrain melody inevitably creeps into the episodes, which in turn wander through distant tonalities. The phrase structure is frequently asymmetrical, and the borders between sections are often blurred, making this rather schematic form into something of a roller-coaster ride. Taking note of Bach's instructions regarding the choice of instrument, Miklós Spányi performs them on a tangent piano, an early form of the piano. The strings of the tangent piano are struck by small wooden slips (‘tangents’) and the basic sound is reminiscent of the harpsichord, but this can be modified in a number of ways. Featuring the clavichord, the previous issue in this highly regarded series presented six sonatas from Bach’s first two collections. On the present release, Spányi combines the rondos with Sonatas 4 and 6 from the first collection, as their more extrovert character makes them suited for the tangent piano. He has also recorded Sonata No. 1 of that collection for a second time, giving followers of the series an opportunity to compare the effects that result from using the different instruments.