01 Jarrett CPE BachCPE Bach – Württemberg Sonatas
Keith Jarrett
ECM New Series 2790/91 (ecmrecords.com)

Best known as a jazz pianist, Keith Jarrett’s musical career has encompassed a variety of genres, including numerous forays into classical music. This recording of Carl Phillip Emmanuel Bach’s Württemberg Sonatas, made in May 1994 and unreleased until now, followed a period in which Jarrett had recorded J.S. Bach’s Das Wohltemperierte Klavier, Goldberg Variations, French Suites and the 3 Sonaten für Viola da Gamba und Cembalo, as well as Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues and Handel’s Keyboard Suites

The Württemberg Sonatas were dedicated to Duke Carl Eugen of Württemberg, who studied with the younger Bach at the court of Frederik the Great in Berlin. Published in 1744, these sonatas are now regarded as musical masterpieces of the era between the Baroque and the classical and are fascinating studies in the seismic shifts happening in music at the time, as the highly ordered music of J.S. Bach and Handel was overtaken by simpler, freer and less structured music that focused more on expressive impact and improvisation than internal organizational principles.

Jarrett’s approach to this music is rooted in his renowned understanding of improvisation, resulting in interpretations which are simultaneously surprising and delightful, though never ostentatious or imposing. Bach was a magnificent improviser and, while Jarrett does not often follow historically informed performance practices and presents this music on a modern piano, his ability to find colours, textures and affects within individual movements and depict the architecture of the whole is unparalleled.

A duo of musical polymaths, this recording is a fine testament to the musical genius of C.P.E. Bach and Keith Jarrett, rewarding listeners with the rare combination of brilliance from both composer and interpreter.

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