Bach, J S: Keyboard Concerto in D minor (after Marcello), BWV974 (harpsichord or piano)

This recording brings together all the arrangements for harpsichord by Bach of instrumental concertos by his Italian contemporary Antonio Vivaldi, adding those of one concerto each by the brothers Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello. They are performed by Sophie Yates who has made a series of solo CDs for Chandos, many of which have won international awards. She has been described by Gramophone as ‘hugely talented’ and by BBC Music as playing ‘with exceptional poise’.

The concertos by Vivaldi are taken from three different sets: L’estro armonico, Op. 3, La stravaganza, Op. 4, and the set of twelve Concerti a cinque, Op. 7. These are all works which Vivaldi composed early in his career, when he was still making his reputation. For these concertos, Vivaldi chose a Dutch publisher, which crucially allowed the concertos to become available in Northern Europe. This in turn helped to increase the popularity of the concertos, not to mention the influence of Vivaldi’s style. In the words of The New Grove dictionary, L’estro armonico was ‘the most influential music publication of the first half of the eighteenth century’.

So why did Bach choose to tackle the difficult problem of conveying the quintessential Venetian violin sound on a keyboard instrument? One explanation could be that Bach transcribed these concertos for his own education, later adopting the new ideas in works such as the Concerto in the Italian Style for harpsichord. Or perhaps Bach simply enjoyed these works so much that he wanted to experiment with them. Yet another explanation is provided by the German musicologist Arnold Schering, who wrote: ‘we shall have to seek the purpose of these arrangements in practical music-making and be able to accept that within a short time the new concerto of the Italians became such a favourite that players wanted to be able to play the particularly popular concertos with their own two hands on clavichord or organ. Bach’s arrangements would then be considered to be what they really are: keyboard extractions, “for the soul’s refreshment of music-lovers”.’

After the success of his two previous discs, devoted to Scarlatti and Clementi, pianist Olivier Cavé pursues his companionship with a Bach project.

Throughout his extraordinary career, Bach never tired of copying by hand the music of others, and the sense of eclecticism that would drive him to reproduce and adapt works, namely Italian music, was his way of achieving a very personal synthesis and creation, where abstract speculation and poetry would find their place.

These beautiful transcriptions were precisely at the origin of one of his master pieces, the Italian Concerto.

So much has been written about the sensation caused by Gould’s first studio recording of the Goldberg Variations in June 1955 that it is hardly necessary to repeat the story of this “birth of a legend” here. But even though it was this recording that laid the foundations for Gould’s international reputation as a Bach interpreter, its roots lie much further back. From the very outset his Bach had been as unconventional as it was distinctive – and so it remains, in spite of regular attempts to enthrone a “new Glenn Gould”. (Conversely, this has meant that every new recording of Bach’s keyboard works is judged by Gould’s standards.) His habit of slouching over the piano, the expansive gestures of his hands and arms, his stabbing nonlegato (almost always without the use of the sustaining pedal), his breathtaking polyphony and his often extreme tempi all result in a kind of pianism that seems to come from another planet, reminding us of Stefan George’s poem in Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet, “Entrückung” (Rapt Otherworldliness): “I breathe air from another planet.” [...]

DVD: The Goldberg Variations (1981) directed by Bruno Monsaingeon

Picture format: 4:3

NTSC; colour; DVD-5

Language: English (with subtitles in French and German)

In Bach’s time it was common practice to arrange works of other composers for different instruments.Also the great J.S. Bach transcribed solo concertos (for instance violin concertos, wind concertos) of such famous composers like Vivaldi and Marcello for organ solo.

CD was recorded in Kotka (Finland) on the organ used during the famous Kotka International Organ Competition.

Detailed organ registration available in the booklet.

Including the famous Fugue in D minor BWV 539 (originally for viol solo).

CD recorded with the unique ULSI recording system.

A follow up release of Matthias Havinga will follow in the second half of 2011.

Although it would be almost impossible to believe from the lofty position J.S. Bach occupies in the pantheon of the great composers, during his lifetime he was best known as one of the very greatest virtuosos and improvisers on the harpsichord and organ. He produced works of unrivalled contrapuntal art. As a result of his duties at court and for the church, Bach never travelled beyond what we now call Germany. His musical interests and the influences upon his compositional style came from outside the borders of his homeland. It was in particular the music of the Venetian master - Vivaldi and Marcello. Through the young half brother of the Duke of Sachsen-Weimer (who was a very talented violinist) Bach received the scores of Vivaldi’s op.3 concertos, and he learned from the Prince of a Dutch organist, the blind Jan Jakob de Graaf, who could perform such concertos by heart, in three or four voices. Bach’s transcriptions demand an absolute technical mastery of an order unprecedented at the time.What fun he must have had making these arrangements - a welcome change from the day to day duties that kept him from travelling.

Among the wealth of works composed during his Weimar period, J. S. Bach made 22 keyboard transcriptions of concertos by Italian and German composers: six for two keyboards and pedal (BWV 592–596) and sixteen for keyboard (BWV 972–987), the latter of which are recorded here by multi award-winning harpsichordist Elizabeth Farr.

Complementing these masterful transcriptions is the Prelude and Fugue in A minor BWV894, which Bach later reworked as the opening and closing movements of his Triple Concerto BWV1044.

Farr’s other Naxos recordings have been universally praised.