Bach, J S: Keyboard Concerto in G major (after Vivaldi), BWV980 (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”.’

Zuzana Růžičkova, an exceptional personality upon whom the critics conferred the title “First Lady of the Harpsichord”, continued the pioneering efforts Wanda Landowska had made to get the harpsichord recognised as an independent concert instrument. The path she took was co-determined by her lifelong relationship to Bach, whose complete works for harpsichord she has recorded, and along it she was also accompanied by a number of friends she regularly met: Karel Ančerl, Gideon Klein, Sviatoslav Richter, Josef Suk.

She hasn’t, however, remained merely a Bach specialist: in addition to early music, she has recorded all the classic modern harpsichord works, including Poulenc’s Concert champetre and her beloved Bohuslav Martinů’s Concerto for Harpsichord, awareness of which she helped to raise all over the world. A number of pieces have been written directly for Zuzana Růžičkova, among them compositions by Jan Rychlik and the remarkable Sei invenzioni canonici per cembalo by Viktor Kalabis, whom the harpsichordist was married to for over half a century.

This representative selection from Zuzana Růžičkova’s highly acclaimed discography is Supraphon’s way of marking her 80th birthday. The overwhelming majority of these recordings are appearing on CD for the very first time. The perfect way to mark Zuzana Růžičkova’s 80th birthday – a harpsichord feast ranging from Bach to the 20th century.

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.

French harpsichordist Olivier Baumont has distinguished himself as a performer and scholar, specializing in French Baroque repertoire. He took up the harpsichord without learning piano first, sharing his family's love for French history of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He studied with Kenneth Gilbert and Huguette Dreyfus and worked with Gustav Leonhardt in his master classes in Cologne. He was awarded first prize in harpsichord (1981) and in chamber music (1982) at the Paris Conservatory and won the Concours de Solistes de Radio France in 1982. He frequently performs at music festivals in Europe, England, and the United States, and has toured widely. Since 1992, he has directed the Festival Couperin at Chaumes-en-Brie. In September, 2001, Baumont became professor of harpsichord at the Paris Conservatory. He is the author of a biography of François Couperin, has edited harpsichord works by Michel Corrette and Jacques Duphly, and has contributed scholarly articles to numerous musicological journals.