BACH, W.F.: Keyboard Works, Vol. 1

12 Polonaises
Keyboard Sonata in D major
Fantasia in A minor

Robert Hill, fortepiano

Naxos 8.557966 [TTime: 01:02:30]

An important release for Naxos and their purchasers. W F Bach's Polonaises are one of the glories of the period; I have loved to play them on the clavichord for many years. They anticipate 19th C. romanticism in their expressiveness and justify Naxos' claim that Wilhelm Friedmann is a composer worthy to be measured against his father.

The sonata (his first to be published and, regrettably, not followed by others) is technically demanding and of an unusual expressive complexity, writes Robert Hill in his learned liner note. He would like his interpretations (which I cannot fault) to be understood as demonstrating the art of 'quantitative accentuation'. The brief and concentrated Fantasia ends with an explosive Prestissimo.

Played on a reconstruction of a Florentine Cristofori fortepiano (Keith Hill, Michigan, 1999) this is a CD which belies its modest "budget" classification. Essential for all collectors of the Bach family of geniuses.

Peter Grahame Woolf

Consider also W F Bach's Polonaises and Fugues recorded on clavichord by Paul Simmonds
London Independent Records LIR014

Paul Simmonds has worked with the clavichord since his student days, but it was only in the 1980s that he began to discover its potential as an independent musical instrument. In 1995 his first clavichord recording was released on the Ars Musici label. His subsequent recording of keyboard sonatas by the still relatively unknown composer, Ernst Wilhelm Wolf, was awarded the German Critics’ Prize. Living in Southern England, he performs and teaches internationally. In 1999 he gave what was perhaps the first Pedal Clavichord recital in UK. [Editor]