Bach composed these pieces early in life, before any of the other suite sets (French Suites, Partitas). They portray a young Bach bursting with energy, dexterity and ideas, and rapt enthusiasm for the newest styles of the day- the Italian concertos of Vivaldi, and the French harpsichord suites of D'Anglebert, Daquin and Couperin. Melding these powerful forms with the already Italianate German fantasy or toccata, Bach produced some of the world's first true virtuoso keyboard masterpieces. Little wonder that his contemporaries were dazzled.
The Jacques Germain harpsichord has starred on Wildboar recordings before: Arthur Haas' essays of D'Anglebert and Forqueray, as well as Mr Parmentier's recordings of the Bach Toccatas. One of the latest historical French harpsichords extant, it is an ingratiating instrument that proves its flexibility in a broad spectrum of pieces from the 17th French to late German repertoire. Owing to the clarity of its tone and immediacy of speech, it renders the most intricate polyphonic textures transparent and perfectly intelligible, proving an excellent vehicle for these diverse styles.
Read what Brad Lehman
thinks of this CD
Find out what Paul
Vorwerk has to say about it.
This recording has been awarded FIVE STARS in the fall issue of GOLDBERG!
"... his superb English Suites, played with engaging vitality and a tasteful balance of intellect, assured technique and humour ... confirm he is one of the world's most stylish Bach performers."
9401 THE PORTUGUESE FORTEPIANO
Edward Parmentierplays
Iberian music of the 18th century on the 1767 Antunes fortepiano in the
Shrine to Music Museum in Vermillion, South Dakota. Sonatas by Sebastian
Albero, Antonio Soler, Domenico Scarlatti, Lodovico Giustini, Carlos
Seixas, Baldassare Galuppi, João de Sousa Carvalho, and Lodovico
Giustini.
The Antunes fortepiano is one of the oldest playable fortepianos in existence. Although it was built in Lisbon in 1767, the design is a precise copy of Cristofori's pioneering instruments from the beginning of the century. At midcentury, fortepianos were still a rare and exotic item, and nearly all published music was designated for "clavicembalo". Indeed the very term fortepiano was in the process of evolving from the phrase, "gravicembalo col piano e forte".
Edward Parmentier's approach to the instrument is not as a skilled performer on the fortepiano, rather it is as a highly skilled harpsichordist and clavichordist, much as performers of the time would have been. The sound is sensuous and revelatory.
See reviews by Robert Haskins in American
Record Guide,
Laurence Vittes in Southern
California Early Music News
Craig Zeichner in Early
Music America
Deuxième & Cinquième Suites; “La Forqueray” by
Duphly & Rameau. Recorded in the Shrine to Music Museum, Vermillion,
South Dakota. Peter Nothnagle, engineer. Joseph Spencer, prod. DDD 63'
37" $15.98
See Fanfare review
See American Record Guide review
Antoine Forqueray's Pièces de Viole revelled in the gamba's rich bass register in an extremely sensual way. The junior Forqueray transmitted this with equal fervor to the comparably sensuous nether regions of the late French harpsichord. The 1785 Germain (Goermanns) harpsichord is the ideal exponent for this music. Its timbral indulgences, combined with melodies of folksong-like tunefulness, are at times reminiscent of seventeenth century French organ music. Arthur Haas does the program full justice, with subtlety, verve and ardor.
Arcangelo Corelli was without doubt one of the pivotal influences in all of music at the dawn of the eighteenth century. Immensely popular, all of his fame and popularity devolved from a scant six collections of orchestral and chamber music, mostly published near the end of his life, but widely circulated in manuscript for decades before. Shortly after the publication of the Opus VI Concerti Grossi, John Walsh set to work in London transcribing them for two recorders and continuo, a combination he knew would find favor among the English amateurs of the day. They were published in 1720 and proved sufficiently popular to warrant a second printing a decade later. These transcriptions were carefully done, far more ambitious than a simple transposition to suit the range and capabilities of the alto recorder. Movements were borrowed or moved, new movements introduced from unknown sources, elaborate means employed to ensure that all of the music in the original five or six parts found expression in the three parts of these trios.
Walsh himself had this to say: "Although the universall Admiration of Corelli's Works have allmost equaliz'd his Meritt, yet there are many Gentlemen Lovers of Musick who want a true Taste of his perfections, his Compositions being for the Violin only, if so agreeable an Instrument as the Flute could be accomodated with the same benefitt, it would add to the Honor of the Composer, the Pleasure of the performer, and supply that Instrument's defect of good Musick, which has been so much of late Complain'd of..."
---J. Walsh, London 1720
See Fanfare review
8802 D'ANGLEBERT:
PIÈCES DE CLAVECIN. Première
Suite in G, Galliard in a minor
Transcriptions from lute composers and from Lully.
Arthur Haas, harpsichord (Jacques Germain, Paris 1785)
Harpsichord prepared & tuned by Barbara Wolf. Recorded in the Shrine to Music Museum, Vermillion, South Dakota. Peter Nothnagle, engineer, Joseph Spencer, producer DDD $15.98
The first of a long series of Wildboar recordings at The Shrine to Music Museum, this features one of the latest extant French baroque harpsichords. This instrument was dismantled in the 1950s by John Challis, most of its internal components (soundboard, wrestplank, action) emoved and replaced with aluminum, titanium and fiberglass parts of his design. Miraculously, he saved all the original parts, which forty years later Hugh Gough was able to reassemble into one of the most sonorous and compelling instruments left to us. Arthur Haas' performance won glowing critical praise.
Review inSDHS Newsletter
Review inSEHKS Early Keyboard Journal
