If the Kilkenny Arts Festival has whetted rather than sated your appetite for Bach, here’s Andreas Staier swinging into view with new versions of seven harpsichord concertos on two mid-price CDs.
The harpsichord concertos include arrangements of works familiar (the Violin Concertos in E and A minor) as well as presumed arrangements of works now lost.
And Staier includes the Fourth Brandenburg Concerto in the version which retains the two solo recorders but with harpsichord replacing solo violin.
The playing bristles with energy, and both the harpsichord and the period instruments of the Freiburger are presented in larger-than-life, hyperreal close focus rather than the balances of the concert hall.
