Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, the eldest of Bach's sons and the child for whom, perhaps, he had the greatest affection, was a gifted musician with outstanding potential. By the time he was in his mid-thirties he was rated among the finest organists in Germany; but his father's death in 1750 was a bitter blow from which he seemed never to have fully recovered and the compositions of his restless later life are variable. Christophe Rousset has chosen a fascinating programme which illustrates the considerable technical gifts and fertile musical imagination of this enigmatic member of the Bach household. The two sonatas in G major and A minor were composed in the early to mid 1740s and the C minor Fantasia probably at about the same time. The Eight Fugues were written in Berlin in 1778 but the remaining pieces, the Suite in G minor, the Prelude and the March almost certainly belong to the 1730s.
Taken together there is a wealth of stylistic variety in the pieces. Fascinating as ever is the Janus-like stance adopted by Bach and many others of his generation towards baroque and galant, early classical idioms. Friedemann's particular blend of the strict with the free, the lyrical with the passionate and the old with the new is often strikingly bold. Such skilfully handled blends and juxtapositions can be seen even in the vigorous, affirmative and inventive G minor Suite where although the towering presence of J. S. Bach is predominant, the spirit of the North German empfindsamer Stil is easily discerned, and especially in the concluding group of dances. Rousset's performance of this attractive work is full of vitality and sensibility and his assured, stylish gestures give it a colourful presence. Empfindsamkeit is in greater evidence in the short but affecting 'Prelude', the March with its brief excursion into the minor key, but above all in the toccata-like Fantasia in C minor. Rousset gives a virtuoso performance of this impressive piece with its strongly contrasting sections ranging from dazzling passagework to the darkly brooding bars at the close.
The G major is perhaps the more interesting of the two sonatas played here. It is a capricious piece with occasionally startling harmonies, frequent and sudden changes of tempo and a sense of mischief in the outer movements. The slow middle movement on the other hand is an extended and deeply expressive Lament, chromatic, improvisatory in character and poignant. The Eight Fugues in three voices were dedicated to Princess Anna Amalia of Prussia, herself a gifted musician who built up a considerable library of music. They are far more attractive than their somewhat didactic title would suggest and the subjects vary enormously in character. In short, this is a first-rate issue. Rousset is a gifted performer with impressive credentials and he brings a wealth of musical insight to the music. His instrument is a fine-sounding copy by Reinhart von Nagel of Paris after one of two surviving harpsichords by the Berlin craftsman Michael Mietke. It was a Mietke harpsichord, you may recall, that J. S. Bach purchased in Berlin in 1719 for his then patron, Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cothen.'