Bach Harpsichord Concertos
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Johann Sebastian Bach
Label: Naxos
Magazine Review Date: 8/1998
Media Format: CD or Download
Media Runtime: 72
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: 8 554217
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
(3) Concertos for Two Harpsichords and Strings, Movement: No. 1 in C minor, BWV1060 |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Cologne Chamber Orchestra Helmut Müller-Brühl, Conductor Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Michael Behringer, Harpsichord Robert Hill, Harpsichord |
(3) Concertos for Two Harpsichords and Strings, Movement: No. 3 in C minor, BWV1062 |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Cologne Chamber Orchestra Helmut Müller-Brühl, Conductor Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Michael Behringer, Harpsichord Robert Hill, Harpsichord |
(3) Concertos for Two Harpsichords and Strings, Movement: No. 2 in C, BWV1061 |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Christoph Anselm Noll, Harpsichord Cologne Chamber Orchestra Gerald Hambitzer, Harpsichord Helmut Müller-Brühl, Conductor Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer |
(2) Concertos for 3 Harpsichords and Strings, Movement: C, BWV1064 |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Christoph Anselm Noll, Harpsichord Cologne Chamber Orchestra Gerald Hambitzer, Harpsichord Helmut Müller-Brühl, Conductor Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Robert Hill, Harpsichord |
Concerto for 4 Harpsichords and Strings |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Christoph Anselm Noll, Harpsichord Cologne Chamber Orchestra Gerald Hambitzer, Harpsichord Helmut Müller-Brühl, Conductor Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Michael Behringer, Harpsichord Robert Hill, Harpsichord |
Author: Lionel Salter
Despite a certain in-built incongruity, harpsichords (even modern instruments, by the sound of them) partnered in Bach by an orchestra of modern strings, as here, are unlikely to offend many except out-and-out purists. But few Bach-lovers will condone an extraordinary balance that places heavy-handed strings strongly in the foreground and pushes the harpsichords to the back, so that string accompanimental figures are far louder than what is sometimes a merely ill-defined keyboard clatter. Only when the harpsichords are left largely to themselves, as in the slow movements of BWV1060 and 1061, can the quality of the players be assessed: then what strikes one particularly is the liberality with which – not unpleasingly – the soloists decorate their parts; but they become unobtrusively fussy in the Andante of the transcribed two-violin Concerto (BWV1062) – whose first movement is scurried, as is the initial movement of the four-harpsichord Concerto. The finale of the C major two-harpsichord work is conspicuously unstable in pace. Add to this a thoroughly aggressive treatment of the outer movements of BWV1060 (both taken unduly fast) and the finale of BWV1062, and really brutal string chords in the Largo of the four-harpsichord Concerto (borrowed from Vivaldi), and it will be clear why I, for one, shall not be wanting to listen to this disc again.'
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