Things ain’t what they used to be. Borough High Street as ‘a continued ale house with not a shop to be seen between’ – recounted by 17th-century playwright Thomas Dekker – is no more. But turn into Trinity Street for architectural changes that achieve full flower in the shape of Trinity Church Square, of late Georgian houses surrounding Holy Trinity Church built in 1826.

It was de-consecrated in the 1960s though not destroyed. Give thanks because today it is a much-needed recording venue, advertised as ‘large enough for a full symphony orchestra and choir, yet intimate enough for a single soloist’. Yes, even a single harpsichord. Its timbres aren’t lost in the heights of this once-disused building, refurbished as Henry Wood Hall. St Cecilia is now in residence.

She hosts Mahan Esfahani, recording CPE Bach’s Six Württemberg Sonatas of 1742 written for harpsichord four years after his appointment to Frederick the Great’s court in Berlin. Esfahani has his own muse too, 86-year old Czech harpsichordist Zuzana Růžičková, ‘an amazing teacher’ whose photograph stands beside the keyboard; and who he visits regularly in Prague, spending four days in consultation prior to these sessions. ‘She’s in whatever’s good; I’m responsible for whatever’s bad.’

But why CPE? ‘What fascinates me is that we don’t really know how he dealt with being the son of a great man. But why can’t we consider CPE himself a great man in his own right? His is a language that has figured out very subtle changes in musical emotion. It sounds spontaneous but the material has certainly been worked over a great deal. He was 28 when he wrote these sonatas and as I’m of the same age, I thought this music right for my first major solo disc’.

With the right text, too, engraved from the originals by Johann Wilhelm Storer and printed by Haffner of Nuremberg. ‘It’s the most impeccable I’ve ever seen’ says Esfahani, ‘and because it’s from the source there is no tormented history.’ He’s struck lucky with the instrument too, a replica of a three-stop, double-manual Michael Mietke from 1710 tuned to A=415Hz; and built by Růžičková’s one-time pupil, Petr Sefl, who tends this 4ft beauty.

A significant presence is a personal copy of CPE’s Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, a comprehensive tome that includes 60-odd pages devoted exclusively to embellishments. Here Esfahani is unequivocal. ‘They are very important to this music but we should be careful about using modern terms like embellishment or ornament. They imply something adjunct. The French call them agréments, agreeing with the music and therefore integral to its spirit and voicings. They are a part of the melody and CPE is very specific about their use’.

Unruffled efficiency hallmarks the sessions, producer Tim Oldham discreetly in charge, his belief in long, uninterrupted stretches reassuring to the artist. Engineer David Hinitt spaces three main microphones across a gantry above the keyboard, surrounded by four to pick up a refulgent ambience; and the sounds emanating from a pair of B&W 804 speakers fed by a HH Electronics amplifier are lifelike, a near facsimile of the Mietke’s tone described as ‘chocolate’ by Esfahani and Sefl. Note the lute stop Esfahani chooses for the Andante of the First sonata, exemplifying a concern for expressing changing facets in the music. Phrases like ‘not wanting to lose the pathos’ or ‘bringing out the moments of anger’ aren’t uncommon. Nor is he at all averse to considering advice from both Oldham and Sefl. A reservation about the Allegro assai finale leads him to say ‘I think it works without the second repeat because this starts on the seventh chord and you lose something hearing it twice’. No one demurs. Pedantry hasn’t a place in the wider scheme.

More than 200 takes later, Esfahani and Hyperion are close to finishing their three-day odyssey. It’s time to bid farewell. And after hours of aural niceties, a visual pleasure presents itself from the steps of the hall – The Shard, looming above the rooftops, strikingly lit, a glittering beacon against a dark winter welkin. Is something old mingling easily with something new?

Recording details

Work: CPE Bach's Württemberg Sonatas Wq. 49

Artist: Mahan Esfahani

Label: Hyperion

Venue: Henry Wood Hall, London

Producer: Tim Oldham

Engineer: David Hinitt

Dates: January 2-4 2013

This recording will be reviewed in the February issue of Gramophone (on general sale January 30)

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