Reincken

Johann Adam Reincken - Hortus musicus and Works for Harpsichord
Classical, Baroque | 1 CD | EAC | FLAC, CUE, LOG | Scans | 429 MB | Rapidshare
Recorded: 15-17 Dec. 1999, Oxford Church, Suffolk | Released: 2001 | Label: Chandos CHAN 0664 | TT: 71:18
The Purcell Quartet (Catherine Mackintosh, Catherine Weiss - violin | Richard Boothby - bass viol | Robert Woolley - harpsichord)

In the late seventeenth century Hamburg was the most cosmopolitan city in Germany. It was one of the first cities outside Italy to have public concertos and an opera house. Johann Adam Reincken, organist at the Katharinenkirche from 1663, exemplified Hamburg’s sophisticated, proud culture. […] Reincken was renowned as an improviser and, perhaps because he jealously guarded his art, he committed little keyboard music to paper. Instead the main item in Reincken’s surviving output is Hortus musicus, his 1687 set of six partitas for two violins, viola da gamba and continuo.

John Adam Reincken was a celebrity. When the genial Johann Sebastian Bach was a sixteen-year-old secondary school pupil, he made his way on foot from Lüneburg to Hamburg to experience in person this undisputed master of improvisational artistry. What the young man heard must have made a profound impression on him. In his toccatas Bach closely follows his great model and even quotes motivic material from Reincken's works.

At the centre of this production are the sonatas for keyboard instruments BWV 963-970 by J. S. Bach, which are relatively unknown and only rarely performed, recorded or published. The Italian pianist Francesco Tropea came across these musical treasures during his research in the library of the Mozarteum in Salzburg and realised that there are only a few recordings of this music, mostly on old instruments and rarely on a modern piano. He was therefore grateful for the opportunity to be able to explore these comparatively little-known compositions – two of which are still completely unpublished (no piano recordings of the sonatas BWV 969 and 970 exist to date) – composed by one of the most important geniuses in the history of music.

At the centre of this production are the sonatas for keyboard instruments BWV 963-970 by J. S. Bach, which are relatively unknown and only rarely performed, recorded or published. The Italian pianist Francesco Tropea came across these musical treasures during his research in the library of the Mozarteum in Salzburg and realised that there are only a few recordings of this music, mostly on old instruments and rarely on a modern piano. He was therefore grateful for the opportunity to be able to explore these comparatively little-known compositions – two of which are still completely unpublished (no piano recordings of the sonatas BWV 969 and 970 exist to date) – composed by one of the most important geniuses in the history of music.