This is a particularly valuable part of the complete works of Bach that Hänssler is issuing. Michael Behringer is an excellent harpsichordist whose unforced, often cheerful-sounding playing is typically a delight, whether he is playing the early version of the sometimes prodigiously difficult Partitas with which the set opens or the little marches and minuets that many of us played as beginning pianists. There are 42 pieces in the Anna Magdalena Bach Book. They include a variety of arias, all rendered here by baritone Johannes-Christoph Happel and soprano Sibylla Ruben, and three chorales. (Hänssler includes all the texts.) The utter simplicity of the rendering of O Ewigkeit, du Donnerwort makes it, despite its abrupt ending, a moving experience.

It was set to a melody written by Johann Crüger. The Anna Magdalena Bach Book, as is well known, contains pieces by other composers, C. P. E. and Johann Christian Bach, Couperin, and Hasse among them. These are pieces for which the Bach family had particular affection; that alone is enough to make them interesting to contemporary listeners. Most, with the possible exception of an occasional march, are musically interesting as well. Two of the French Suites made their way into this book. Behringer and his peers have created a beguiling collection of music, well played and sung, of interest to scholars and to everyday music-lovers as well.

-- Michael Ullman, FANFARE [11/2000]