JS Bach, CPE Bach, WF Bach

COMPOSERS: CPE Bach,JS Bach,WF Bach
LABELS: Ambroisie
ALBUM TITLE: The Bach Dynasty
WORKS: JS Bach: Harpsichord Concerto

in D minor, BWV 1059; CPE Bach:

Cello Concerto in A; Symphony

in C; WF Bach: Flute Concerto


PERFORMER: Jocelyn Daubigney (flute), Atsushi sakaï, (cello); Les Talens Lyriques/Chistophe Rousset (harpsichord)
CATALOGUE NO: AM125

Two generations do not a dynasty make – especially when Johann Sebastian was proud to trace the Bachs’ musical pedigree to the early 16th century. But Christophe Rousset might justify the title of his latest recording by arguing that the family saved the best wine for last. Listeners won’t disagree, though they will find nothing to challenge the inescapable conclusion that the sons uncorked a fitful ‘blend’ in the shadow of their father’s vintage. For all flautist Jocelyn Daubigney’s effortless fluency, Wilhelm Friedemann’s D major Flute Concerto scarcely rises above the circumscribed charm of something ‘well-turned’, and although the CPE Bach Symphony crackles with Rousset’s mission to exact every last ounce of exhilaration in the first movement, the compositional flame burns low in the Adagio. It’s much the same with the Cello Concerto despite an electric finale, and a first movement warmly shaped by Atsushi Sakai who matches Rousset’s debonair vitality. No caveats attach to the ‘prelude’ however: JS Bach’s D minor Harpsichord Concerto. Not the famous one, but a textually problematic work whose lack of slow movement is solved by a touch of the cadential Brandenburg Third’s, and whose execution is a joy from beginning to end – conversational muscularity and vivacity ever Rousset hallmarks in ‘Papa’ Bach.