Search - Joseph Payne :: Andreas Bach Manuscript

Music from Bach's household

a_kantchev | Taipei, Taiwan | 11/02/2001

(5 out of 5 stars)

"HISTORY: When J.S.Bach's parents died in 1695, he moved to live and study music with his elder brother Johann Christoph. Christoph was a good organist and music teacher and under his tutelage the young genius acquired his first training in music. How? This recording gives the answer. Christoph was (like most of the Bach circle) ardent scribe of music, which he used for teaching and performance. These were the works the young Bach had to take secretly at night to study. The Andreas Bach manuscript is one of the Christopf notebooks. THE WORKS. Along with many contemporary composers, it is also an important source of the early music of J. S. Bach. This recording displays a good cross section of the Manuscript. For all the lovers of Bach music it would be interesting to hear the pieces Bach used to study with his brother, as well as some renditions of Bach's early works. THE RECORDING: J. Payne plays a fine Flemish Haprsichord with briliance and knowledge of the period performance practice. His tempos are right and the registrations on organ and especially harpsichord (!) are well chosen. From the non-Bach works, the Prelude, Fugue and Postlude in g-minor (harpsichord) by G. Bohm and The sonata in f-minor (harpsichord) of C. Ritter stand out. The former piece recalls the Bach harpsichord toccatas and the Prelude in fugue for organ in g-minor (BWV 535) in structure and musical ideas. The performance of the graceful, almost worthy of Bach's name Suite by Ritter is very beautiful. From Bach's works, the rarely recorded Fantasia in C-major BWV 570 sounds very warm and intimate. Payne plays 2 historical organs in Thuringia, which are of modest size and very dark and warm tone (plently of 8 foot flute stops), such that is rarely heard on the grand instruments of Silbermann and Schnitger. The (apparently) harpsichord Overture in F is played on organ here, while Fantasia BWV Anh. 205, usually recorded on organ, is performed on harpsichord (combined with Prelude BWV 921). The keyboard Fugue in A-major (BWV 949), though catalogued along with the harpsichord works, really demands an organ for the proper performance. It serves as an excellent culmination of an outstanding recording. This standard-of-the-art (both as sound and performance practice) CD is higly coimmendable and budget priced. Hopefully, the whole Manuscript could be recorded in the forthcoming years."