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.

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.

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.

This disc takes us on a whistle-stop tour of English keyboard music in the late 16th and early 17th centuries. The fantasy, pavan and galliard were among the most popular forms of their day. The latter two dance movements were often paired together, and sometimes linked thematically. The pavan, wrote Thomas Morley, was ‘a kind of staide musicke, ordained for grave dauncing’, while the briefer galliard serviced ‘a lighter and more stirring kinde of dauncing’. The most attractive examples here are Bull’s charming John Lumley’s Pavan and Galliard and Byrd’s Pavan ‘Ph. Tregian’ & Galliard, its regal pavan among the disc’s high spots.

Clearly Philips is not trying to sell this disc because of the works being performed – a fairly miscellaneous collection of Bach's works written or transcribed for the harpsichord – but rather for the performer of the works. But since the performer is Gustav Leonhardt – perhaps the greatest musician of the whole early music movement of the second half of the twentieth century – that is a more than sufficient reason to get this disc.

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.

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.

Here is another of Gustav Leonhardt's mixed programmes but this one, unlike the earlier European grand tour ((CD) 426 352-2PH, 4/90), is confined to German repertory and is played not on the harpsichord but on the clavichord. The earliest music is by Christian Ritter, who was born in the mid seventeenth century and who was based mainly in Halle where he was employed as an organist. His Suite in F sharp minor is an appealing work somewhat in the manner of Froberger; the opening Allemande is beautifully written and well sustained and the poignant Sarabande an affecting piece built on a descending octave pattern which gives it the character of a lament.

Originally two separate albums recorded in the late days of stereo LPs, this two-disc set of Bach's works for harpsichord was released together for less than the price of a single LP. But even at twice the price of the original LPs, these performances would be worth purchasing for two reasons. First, the harpsichordist is Gustav Leonhardt, and while there are surely more virtuosic harpsichordists in the world, there are few finer musicians and fewer still finer souls.

In the Telemann mountains, much of the topography remains terra incognita because most of Telemann's music remains an undiscovered country. But whatever future generations of hardy musicologists may uncover, it is unlikely that Telemann's Nouveaux Quatuors en Six Suites published in Paris in 1738 will be displaced as among his output's highest peaks.