This is the first volume in a complete survey of Bach’s harpsichord concertos, recorded by La Risonanza in one-to-a-part practice performance. With his Fifth Brandenburg Concerto, Bach had created the first ever harpsichord concerto. In Leipzig, the opportunity arose to continue this experiment: each week at Café Zimmermann he conducted his Collegium musicum in orchestral concerts that lasted around two hours. In the summer of 1733, he took delivery of “a new harpsichord, the like of which has not been heard before around here.” This magnificent instrument, which featured in the Zimmermann concerts, urgently called for concertos to be played by Bach himself as soloist, and even more so his sons and students. Not only in Saxony but also well beyond, Bach was considered to be the absolute authority on all things harpsichord and organ; he thus had to make his own contribution to the emerging genre of the ‘clavier concerto.’ The manuscript of his six harpsichord concertos should therefore be understood as a repertoire collection for his Collegium musicum, and as a personal manifesto.

Suspended between the Renaissance and Baroque eras, Merulo’s Toccate are unique compositions which occupy a singular role in the landscape of keyboard music. They are not prototypes, in that they are artistically too mature: rather, they prelude the way of expressing affetti of the “seconda prattica” on the keyboard, an art of which Frescobaldi would later be the uncontested master. The fascination of these daring compositions lies in the coexistence of new and old elements, Renaissance polyphony and Baroque gestural impulses. Claudio Merulo, who lived between Parma and Venice and was active not only as a great organ virtuoso, but also as an editor and alchemist, finds in his music the magic formula of balance between extreme elements which preserve his legacy as a mature and exceptional artist.

Here is the second volume of Bach’s Sonatas for violin and obbligato harpsichord. Terakado and Bonizzoni offer a thoroughly distinctive account of these famous masterpieces. Their approach combines a deep musical and philosophical insight with a conversational vibe.