Rubicon reviews

Beethoven didn’t write music in a vacuum. Much is made of how influential he has been to almost every composer who followed, but it has been harder to find explorations of the music and composers he was shaped by himself.

There’s no danger that Norway’s Barokksolistene will be abandoning the day job any time soon. But for the past decade the enterprising period instrument ensemble, directed by Bjarte Eike, has been moonlighting with ‘alehouse sessions’ raising a glass or three to the boozy world of music-making to be found in the taverns where Henry Purcell and his contemporaries liked to unwind. It’s not just the beer that’s subject to a good mash-up!

Bach’s keyboard concertos are, in fact, his own recyclings for harpsichord and strings of sundry earlier works – fine examples of how he refashioned his music according to his resources and circumstances. Had he lived a generation later, he would might have played them on the piano, as his namesake Sonya Bach does here.