Keyboard Rich

This is a superb recording of the Two-Part and Sinfonias (Three-Part Inventions) of Johann Sebastian Bach. Kenneth Gilbert is a wonderful interpreter of Bach's keyboard music and in this recording plays an instrument made in 1671 by Jan Couchet that was subsequently enlarged in 1778. The Two-Part Inventions and Sinfonias consist of 15 parts; they were written as technical exercises and as composition demonstration pieces originally for his son Wilhelm Friedemann. The various pieces were probably written separately and were gathered together by Bach in major/minor key sequence and published in 1723. The recording is clear and well balanced. Kenneth Gilbert plays beautifully; the music is lively without being ostentatious.

He was as eminent in composing as in playing extemporanously. Among the musicians who were active in the first half of the seventeenth century, Girolamo Frescobaldi (Ferrara, 1583 – Rome, 1643) stands out not only as an organist whose virtuosity and technical skill were superlative and incomparable, but also as a formidable musician who was able to interpret the artistic stirrings in the musical language of his time and to incorporate them, in an effective and significant way, into his vast production for keyboard instruments.