Bach, Bull, Byrd, Gibbons, Hassler, Pachelbel, Ritter, Strogers

Album review

This at first apparently what seems to be an arbitrary collection of keyboard works from the Baroque period, but it is in fact the companion volume to a previous collection of seemingly random keyboard works from the Baroque period. In both volumes, however, master musician Gustav Leonhardt has brilliantly arranged an aesthetic investigation of the influence of Italian keyboard music on the rest of Europe. In the previous volume, Leonhardt examined Italy's impact on France. This time, he looks at Italy's effect on England and Germany. Thus, what had at first seemed intellectually random is in fact inherently cogent.
But, aesthetic investigations aside, what really makes this disc so good is that the septuagenarian Leonhardt is still the hottest Baroque keyboard player out there. He's still got a brilliant technique, an exciting performance style, and, best of all, a mind that can plumb the depths and scale the heights of any music he puts his hands to. Each of his performances here, from a Canzon by Hassler to Byrd's Queens Alman to Pachelbel's G major Toccata, is a model of musical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual integrity, but his climactic pairing of two magnificent sets of variations by Bach preceded by a poignant Fantasia are truly sublime. For all the works up to Bach, Leonhardt performs on a reproduction of a rare instrument called a claviorganum, a harpsichord attached to organ pipes, and the sound of both instruments together is nearly unique and utterly unearthly. For the Bach works, Leonhardt has chosen a reproduction of an eighteenth century German harpsichord with a robust tone and a crisp attack. As captured in Alpha's standard resplendent sound, both instruments sound warm, responsive, and virtually alive.

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