COMPOSERS: JC Bach,JS Bach,WF Bach
LABELS: Mercury Living Presence
WORKS: Partita in B minor (Overture in the French Style), BWV 831, .Duet in A, Op. 18/5.Concerto for Two Harpsichords
PERFORMER: Rafael Puyana, Genoveva Galvez (harpsichord)
CATALOGUE NO: 434 395-2 ADD Reissue (1963)
Puyana, a pupil of Wanda Landowska, continued her pioneering work in searching for both the instrument and the playing style of Baroque keyboard music. His instrument (unspecified) has the stolid weight and brittle tone of Landowska’s own Pleyel, and he makes full use of the kaleidoscopic array of its tonal options, above all in the large-scale Toccata in F sharp minor and the French-derived Partita in B minor.
He is joined by his own pupil in two delightful duets by Bach’s oldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, and his youngest, the gallant Johann Christian. You may find the ambient rumble disturbing. George Pratt