Leonhardt

Gustav Leonhardt, one of the stalwarts of the "early music movement" has just passed a significant birthday and Sony has pulled together a representative 15 titles from his time with the label and put them in a clam-shell box.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach (1714-1788) was a German musician and composer; and the second of five sons of Johann Sebastian Bach and his frist wife, Maria Barbara Bach. He is considered to be one of the founders of the Classical style, composing in the Rococo and Classical periods.

Leonhardt gives a deeply felt, reverent and contemplative performance of the St Matthew Passion. It is beautifully played and sung; introspective yet intense, understated yet profound. This is a version completely lacking in flashy, extravagant gestures but it does rather strip the piece down to its so-deep soul.

In January 2012, the nestor of early music in the Netherlands died: Gustav Leonhardt. Together with Harnoncourt he belonged to the pioneers of authentic performance practice. Leonhardt was a gentleman at the keyboard. His aristocratic mastery of the French harpsichordists alone, with all those complex decorations and declamations, was unrivaled. And yet he regarded Bach as the greatest composer ever. 'His music is incredibly versatile, interesting, intelligent. (…) What is the secret? If only we would know that! ', According to Gustav Leonhardt in an interview with the Reformatorisch Dagblad. This reissue, undoubtedly inspired by the publicity surrounding Leonhard's death, includes performances by Das Wohltemperierte Klavier, Die Kunst Der Fuge and the Goldberg Variationen.

This collection was first compiled in 1970 or so from recordings dating as far back as 1961. The set, now remastered and issued on cd, includes performances by three generations of harpsichordists, with Gustav Leonhardt providing the central focus. Leonhardt includes (in BWV 1060, 1062 and 1065) his former teacher from the Schola Cantorum in Basle, Eduard Mueller (the student modestly playing second harpsichord to his mentor in 1060 and 1065) while his own first-generation students Anneke Uittenbosch and Alan Curtis join him for BWV 1061, 1063-1065.

The catalog may contain more ebullient, elaborately ornamented versions of Bach’s Partitas and English Suites, yet Gustav Leonhardt’s knowing mastery offers its own rewards. His subtle deployment of agogics to compensate for the harpsichord’s lack of dynamics markedly contrasts to the choppy, discontinuous phrasing we often hear in the name of authenticity. What’s more, the relaxed lilt of Leonhardt’s basic tempos constantly reflects the music’s dance origins.

The cosmopolitan composer and harpsichordist Johann Jacob Froberger (1616-67) was born in Stuttgart. He spent much of his professional life at the court of Vienna but traveled widely to Italy, France, England, and the Netherlands. In his keyboard compositions, he acknowledged the divergent styles of his European contemporaries while forging a highly personal and musically powerful synthesis. Serving the Viennese Hofkapelle from 1634 until 1645, he was granted a stipend from the Italophile Emperor Ferdinand III to travel to Italy and supplement his musical training by studying with Girolamo Frescobaldi. He studied in Rome from late 1637 until 1641 and made a second trip to Rome, Florence, and Mantua before 1649. An extensive period of travel from 1649 to 1653 probably included trips to Paris (where he met Chambonnières and Louis Couperin), the Spanish Netherlands, and England.

Kuhnau’s six Biblical Sonatas are among the most fascinating keyboard curiosities of the baroque. Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722), Bach’s immediate predecessor as Thomaskantor in Leipzig, was a versatile composer, performer and polymath who produced fine works in a wide range of formats. These Biblical Sonatas were written as domestic programme music to illustrate - indeed, to describe - the following Old Testament stories: the Battle between David and Goliath; Saul Cured by David through Music; Jacob’s Marriage; Hezekiah’s Restoration to Health; Gideon, Deliverer of Israel; and Jacob’s Death and Burial.

If the Alpha label had done nothing more than return Gustav Leonhardt to the studio, it would still be one of the best contemporary classical record companies. That everything else about its releases – the sound, the liner notes, even the reproductions on the covers – is as good or better than what any other classical company manages is only icing on the cake. Leonhardt has been one of the finest harpsichordists in the world for more than 40 years, and his recordings of the repertoire from Frescobaldi to Bach have been the standards against which all other recordings have been judged. But Leonhardt had made no recordings for most of the last decade, and listeners began to wonder if he ever would again. Now, with his fourth release for Alpha, listeners can finally relax, confident in the knowledge that Leonhardt has indeed returned. This 2005 disc of keyboard music by Byrd finds Leonhardt at the top of his form. As always, his technique is secure, and nothing in Byrd's virtuoso writing is beyond him. And, as always, his musicianship is assured, and nothing in Byrd's sensitive music is beyond him.