Bach - The Keyboard Concertos Vol 1

Editorial Reviews
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This delectable collection of Bach Keyboard concertos is so unsullied by tradition or a point to prove that the listener is left refreshed. Angela Hewitt plays with such warmth and song-like smoothness in the slow movements that they are little islands of repose in the midst of Bach's perky outer movements, which Hewitt and conductor-violinist Richard Tognetti launch with unmatched verve, rhythmic thrust and quick-but-never-rushed tempi. The Fifth Brandenburg and the Triple Concerto also call for a violin and flute and Togneti and Alison Mitchell are ideal partners to Hewitt: the give and take seems simply like great "jamming." Every note is clear and each soloist (and the fine Australian Chamber Orchestra) adds ornaments which are pert and welcome. The big cadenza in the Fifth Brandenburg is like liquid--beautifully flowing and well-articulated by Hewitt--and while the virtuosity is never in doubt, she never draws attention to herself. She plays a modern piano and the Orchestra play modern instruments, but early-music performance practice and style are very much in evidence (including a harpsichord in the continuo section). This is Bach playing of the highest order and splendid entertainment. --Robert Levine

Album Details
Angela Hewitt Performed and Recorded with the Australian Chamber Orchestra in February 2005, a Perfect Collaboration Resulting in Two Volumes of Bach Keyboard Concertos.

Tracks:

Piano Concerto in D Minor, BWV.1052: Allegro non troppo ed energico
Piano Concerto in D Minor, BWV.1052: Adagio
Piano Concerto in D Minor, BWV.1052: Allegro
Piano Concerto in E Major, BWV.1053: Allegro
Piano Concerto in E Major, BWV.1053: Siciliano
Piano Concerto in E Major, BWV.1053: Allegro
Piano Concerto in D Major, BWV.1054: Allegro
Piano Concerto in D Major, BWV.1054: Adagio e sempre piano
Piano Concerto in D Major, BWV.1054: Allegro

Customer Reviews:

An entertaining fun disc, historically inaccurate.......2005-06-25

If you would like to hear Bach's keyboard concertos as Bach actually intended them to be heard, you would do well to look elsewhere. Naxos later produced a series of recordings with the Cologne Chamber Orchestra directed by Helmut Müller-Brühl in which historical performance practice is ideally combined with modern instruments - these are available at the usual incredible Naxos price; if you prefer historical instruments, then I suggest looking at recordings by The English Concert/Trevor Pinnock (on Deutsche Grammophon) or by the ensemble Le Concert Francais/Pierre Hantai (on Auvidis-Astrée).

Nevertheless, if you prefer the modern piano to a harpsichord and are not too worried about questions of "authentic" style, you will probably enjoy this 1990 Naxos disc on which Korean pianist Hae-won Chang gives a classy performance quite brilliantly captured by the Slovakian engineers. The accompanying Camerata Cassovia, directed by Robert Stankovsky, seems to have had quite a field day, too, although the engineers have ensured that it is always the soloist in the foreground. A fun disc on which pure entertainment takes priority over any musicological considerations.

First rate!.......2000-03-03

Beautiful music beautifully done. The soloist's phrasing is crystal clear and calm. I have four other recording of these pieces on both harpsicord and piano, and this is my favorite by far.

Chang's Bach Piano Concertos are a joy!.......1999-12-10

What a fun CD! The performances are excellent, the sound is very good and the music is glorious. If you want the Bach keyboard concertos on a modern piano, here you go. Note that while everything is on modern instruments, tempos are quick and the playing is lively, thus providing the best in period performance practices.

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Exhilarating
The Lightness of Joy
A mix of good and not so good
Wonderful but
Fans of Hewitt will rejoice; everyone else may look askance

Bach - The Keyboard Concertos Vol 1
Bach , Angela Hewitt , Richard Tognetti , and Australian Chamber Orchestra
Manufacturer: Hyperion UK
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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Bach - The Keyboard Concertos Vol 2
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Goldberg Variations
Bach: French Suites / Angela Hewitt
Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier (book 1)

ASIN: B0009K9P7K
Release Date: 2005-06-13

Tracks:

Allegro
Adagio
Allegro
(First Movement)
Andante
Allegro Assai
Allegro
Affettuoso
Allegro
Allegro
Adagio Ma Non Tanto E Dolce
Tempo Di Alla Breve

Amazon.com

This delectable collection of Bach Keyboard concertos is so unsullied by tradition or a point to prove that the listener is left refreshed. Angela Hewitt plays with such warmth and song-like smoothness in the slow movements that they are little islands of repose in the midst of Bach's perky outer movements, which Hewitt and conductor-violinist Richard Tognetti launch with unmatched verve, rhythmic thrust and quick-but-never-rushed tempi. The Fifth Brandenburg and the Triple Concerto also call for a violin and flute and Togneti and Alison Mitchell are ideal partners to Hewitt: the give and take seems simply like great "jamming." Every note is clear and each soloist (and the fine Australian Chamber Orchestra) adds ornaments which are pert and welcome. The big cadenza in the Fifth Brandenburg is like liquid--beautifully flowing and well-articulated by Hewitt--and while the virtuosity is never in doubt, she never draws attention to herself. She plays a modern piano and the Orchestra play modern instruments, but early-music performance practice and style are very much in evidence (including a harpsichord in the continuo section). This is Bach playing of the highest order and splendid entertainment. --Robert Levine

Album Details

Angela Hewitt Performed and Recorded with the Australian Chamber Orchestra in February 2005, a Perfect Collaboration Resulting in Two Volumes of Bach Keyboard Concertos.

Customer Reviews:

Exhilarating.......2007-07-12

This is a stupendous CD. Angela Hewitt's glorious and sensitive touch is beautifully matched by the precision and vitality of the ACO. Although some reviewers have decried the performance of Brandenburg No. 5, to me this is a highlight. The solo at the end of the first movement is rivetting.

If I wanted to introduce someone to the glories of Bach, this is the CD I'd play to them. Turn it up loud and rejoice.

The Lightness of Joy.......2007-01-19

Not being a musician, I cannot comment on any technical aspect of the performers' playing (except that the concertos sound just fine with a piano used as a solo instrument and a harpsicord used only as continuo).

However, having now listened to both volumes of the Keyboard Concertos several times, I know how they affect me - every time I listen, I feel better...lighter...simply more joyful.

George Leigh Mallory -- he of "Because it's there" Mount Everest fame -- also said what must surely apply to these performances: "What we get from this ... is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money; we eat and make money to be able to enjoy life. That is what life means and what life is for."

A mix of good and not so good.......2006-03-02

A problem for me with performances of harpsichord music on pianos is that the pianist often uses way too much pedal. Not that I want a piano to sound like a harpsichord-- but the cadenza at the end of the first movement of Brandenburg 5 did make me cringe. It was so smeared that sometimes notes disappeared. In other places, there seemed to be very out of place fortissimos that distracted one from the line of the music. All that said, Hewitt excellent pianism often shines through-- I was hearing musical lines that have not been in evidence in other recordings.

The soloist performance I'd rate 3 stars; the support of the Australian Chamber Orchestra and the generally excellent sound bumps the overall rating to 4.

Wonderful but.......2006-02-26

I very much enjoyed Angela Hewitt's playing in Bach's keyboard concertos. Some might quibble that they are played on a piano, but horses and carts have also been replaced by motor cars. The ACO is one of Australia's treasures - described in London as the world's best chamber orchestra - and it gives Hewitt wonderful support. (The prolific reviewer Larry VanDeSande has eleswhere described the ACO as "a scrawny sounding period band" but LVDS seems to have sacrificed integrity for effect - he might equally describe the Chicago orchestra as "overblown and conventional"). The real problem with Hewitt and the ACO is that equally fine performances at a fraction of the cost can be found on Naxos with Hae-won Chang (piano) and the Camerata Cassovia. Fair dinkum and I kid you not.

Fans of Hewitt will rejoice; everyone else may look askance.......2005-11-12

You never know what's going to come back into style in classical music, do you? With Murray Perhaiah and now Angela Hewitt playing the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5 from the modern grand piano, we seemingly have gone backwards in time to the era of the great pianists and wax recordings in the early 20th century.

Hewitt plays the traditional Bach keyboard concerti Nos. 1 and 7 from the piano and contributes a performance of the Bach "Triple" Concerto from the concert grand to fill out this well-stocked disk of Bach wonders. I only wish I had more wonderful things to say about the goings on.

What I find most unattractive about these renditions -- aside from the very unstylistic inclusion of a concert grand piano in the Brandenburg and Triple concerti -- is the way the combined forces mix styles.

In the opening Concerto No. 1 for keyboard, Hewitt at times produces a sonority that is more appropriate for Brahms than Bach. She is matched by a scrawny sounding period band from Autstralia. This combination of Brahmsian piano and period string band...well, it just doesn't come off very well for me.

Other than her occasionally overripe tone and romantic sonority, I don't quibble with Hewitt's approach for the most part. She is a known commodity in Bach and her work here is similar to everything else she's done with this composer. Only a highly romanticized cadenza at the conclusion of the Triple Concerto -- which probably comes off best among the four concerti recorded here -- seems wayward.

On the pluse side, the opening movement of the Concerto No. 1 is pushed very hard in Bach style and the middle section of the Concerto No. 7 is very beautiful. It works well in the piano concertos but elsewhere seems to me to be a step backward to a time when people thought Bach surely must have meant to include a concert grand piano where he only had the limitations of the clavichord and harpsichord at his disposal.

Where this error in judgment is most apparent is in the Brandenburg Concerto No. 5. Listen to that long harpsichord solo at the end of the first movement by any good recording using a harpsichord, then come back to this recording and notice the way the piano not only lacks color throughout the concerto but almost seems to disappear at the same junction.

At other times, the concerto grand overwhelms the thin tone of Richard Tognetti's violin and Alison Mitchells flute, both here and in the Triple Concerto. This, to me, is what most renders this recording a curiosity and not essential Bach musicmaking.

I think this recording will be accepted with open arms by fans of Hewitt and those that hanker for a return to the era of Alfred Cortot's recordings of the Brandenburgs circa 1931. For others, this recording will more likely be considered an oddity to be heard once and discarded.

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First Volume of a Valuable Complete Edition

Bach: Keyboard Concertos Vol.1

Manufacturer: Bis
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B0000016M5
Release Date: 1995-10-24

Tracks:

I. Allegro Di Molto
II. Adagio
III. Allegro
I. Allegro
II. Andante
III. Allegro Assai
I. Allegro Non Molto
II. Largo
III. Allegro Assai

Customer Reviews:

First Volume of a Valuable Complete Edition.......2007-05-24

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714 - 1788): The Complete Keyboard Concertos Vol. 1 containing 1. Concerto in G major H. 405 (Wq. 3); 2. Concerto in A minor H. 403 (Wq. 1); 3. Concerto in E flat major H. 404 (Wq. 2). Performed by Miklós Spányi, harpsichord; Concerto Armonico (7 violins, 2 violas, cello, double bass and harpsichord); directed by Miklós Spányi and Péter Szüts. Cadenzas improvised at the recording sessions (December 1994 at the Angyalföld Reformed Church, Hungary). First issued in 1995 as BIS CD-707. Total playing time: 61'52".

This is the first volume of a long series of BIS recordings documenting the complete works for harpsichord and strings by the second son of Johann Sebastian Bach, Carl Philipp Emanuel. The notes in the CD booklets are provided by members of the team at the University of Maryland who are working on a complete edition of Emanuel Bach's works. Miklós Spányi has decided on the basis of his musical intuition which keyboard instrument to use in each instance - on this first volume we hear a copy of a large harpsichord by the North German instrument-maker Hieronymus Hass. Spànyi has carefully compared the autograph manuscripts with later revisions by the composer himself (copies to be found in the Royal Conservatory of Brussels in Belgium).

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach was, in the eighteenth century, the one people meant when they spoke of "Bach". He was born when his father was 29 years old, spent his youth learning the musician's trade with his father in Leipzig (where H. 403 and H. 404 were written) and, at the age of 20, moved to Frankfurt an der Oder in order to study law (but where he also took charge of musical activities and where he wrote and presumably first performed H. 405). In 1738 he moved again, this time to Berlin where he became harpsichordist at the Court of the future King of Prussia, Frederick (the Great) and where he published his famous theoretical treatise "Essay on the True Way of Playing the Keyboard". In 1768 he was called to be director of church music in the city of Hamburg, where he remained until his death. Altogether he wrote 64 works for keyboard and strings, but also many works for clavichord or harpsichord solo, for pianoforte, a good deal of chamber music, songs and sacred vocal works. His life spanned most of the 18th century, and his name is usually associated with the musical version of "Sturm und Drang" (infelicitously translated as "storm and stress") or "Empfindsamkeit" (sensibility).

The three concertos on this first volume are youthful works - the correct place to begin when studying his output, but definitely only a place to start! H. 403 and H. 404 sound, not surprisingly, quite similar to Johann Sebastian Bach's harpsichord concertos, and although booklet-authoress Rachel Wade argues that the style here is "in keeping with the style he later became known for", it is, I feel, the baroque-ness of these pieces that any lay listener will hear. It is with H. 405 that the somewhat eccentric personality of Carl Philipp Emanuel breaks through - not so much in the keyboard, I felt, as in the strings, where one can already hear some of the surprising jumps and leaps that were to be his "trademark" in later years.

Miklòs Spányi and his Hungarian team (leader: Péter Szüts) take the music at a slightly slower pace than they might perhaps have chosen, and the strings tend to sound a little "thick" at times, despite the relatively small ensemble. But a comparison of H. 405 with the recording made three years later by Ludger Rémy and his "Les Amis de Philippe" for the German label cpo makes it plain that it is possible to perform this music with more clarity and verve and to make the development from father to son a good deal more transparent.CPE Bach: Harpsichord Concertos.

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Itzhak Perlman Collection

Manufacturer: EMI
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B00000DOKC
Release Date: 1995-01-01

Bach: The Keyboard Concertos, Vol. 1 [Hybrid SACD]

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Bach: The Keyboard Concertos, Vol. 1 [Hybrid SACD]

Manufacturer: Hyperion UK
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B0009K9PHK
Release Date: 2005-08-09

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Sprightly Bach Harpsichord Concerti Well-Played and Recorded

Bach: Harpsichord Concertos, Vol. 1

Manufacturer: Cpo Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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ASIN: B0000C16SI
Release Date: 2003-10-21

Customer Reviews:

Sprightly Bach Harpsichord Concerti Well-Played and Recorded.......2003-10-30

I've heard many recordings of the Bach harpsichord concerti over the years and one of my complaints is that although it may be true to performance practice, most times you can't hear the harpsichord well enough. And that's one reason that I tend to prefer these concerti with piano or fortepiano. (It also doesn't hurt that I'm an old pianist still in love with the sound of my own instrument.) These performances, though, pass muster for me. This CD is labeled as 'Volume 1,' so presumably we can look for further recordings. This one contains the Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052; in D major, BWV 1054; and in E major, BWV 1053.

These recordings, I'm happy to say, have the harpsichord soloist aurally out front. Lars Ulrik Mortensen is both soloist and conductor and he does a bang-up job. Tempi are sprightly but not rushed. Articulations are crisp and phrasing is nicely molded. The recorded sound is exceptional. My only quibble is that for some strange reason towards the end of the first movement of the D Minor Concerto MOrtensen does some weird tempo tugging, slowing down to a crawl and then suddenly speeding up again. At first I thought there was a glitch in the CD, but on close listening it is obvious that this is what he intended because he does it again later. I don't see any indication for this in my own score of the concerto and I have no idea what he's doing here. Otherwise, though, and in the other movements, nothing similar ever happens again except for some slight slowing at cadences.

The excellent chamber orchestra (13 players) here is new to me. Formed in 1990,they call themselves 'Concerto Copenhagen', 'CoCo' for short. They are a group of young Danish musicians on period instruments. And they are good! Mortensen, who was once cembalist in the London Baroque, became their music director four years ago.

Certainly I would recommend these performances, even as an only recording. They are that good. As to the music itself, it proves that Bach, rather than the old fogey he is usually painted to be, was out front when it came to invention of the solo concerto form with these and the Fifth Brandenburg Concerto. But then Bach's my man, and can do no wrong.

TT=55:57

Tracks:

Con in A, BWV 1055: Allegro
Con in A, BWV 1055: Larghetto
Con in A, BWV 1055: Allegro Ma Non Tanto
Con in f, BWV 1056: Allegro
Con in f, BWV 1056: Largo
Con in f, BWV 1056: Presto
Con in g, BWV 1058: Allegro
Con in g, BWV 1058: Andante
Con in g, BWV 1058: Allegro Assai
Con Nach Italienischem Gusto: 1st Movement
Con Nach Italienischem Gusto: Andante
Con Nach Italienischem Gusto: Presto

Amazon.com

Vladimir Feltsman's playing of these concertos is truly remarkable. His pointed phrasing and varied articulation keep the music alive. He decorates the text freely with authentic embellishments, just as Bach would have done. The small orchestra doesn't seem to suffer from having its conductor so profitably occupied elsewhere, and keeps very well coordinated with the solo part. In the bonus (the "Italian" Concerto, Bach's translation of concerto grosso style to the solo keyboard), Feltsman plays with detached articulation to simulate the clarity of the harpsichord, and convincingly imitates the large versus small instrumental groups that Bach wrote into the score. Lovers of piano Bach should not miss this one. --Leslie Gerber

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The Sugo Collection, Vol. 1

Manufacturer: Sugo Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

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The Rosalyn Tureck Collection, Vol. 5: Bach and Moazrt - Five Keyboard Concertos

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The Rosalyn Tureck Collection, Vol. 5: Bach and Moazrt - Five Keyboard Concertos

Manufacturer: Video Artists Int'l
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD