Bachiana: Music of the Bach Family is not your run-of-the-mill collection of various pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach and his sons; rather, it should be seen as a collection of Johann Sebastian Bach's ancestors, a distant cousin, and at least one ancestor of his second wife, Anna Magdalena Bach.
Musica Antiqua Köln's director
Reinhard Goebel dedicates this disc to arch Bach musicologist Christoph Wolff, so it is odd that there is no separate listing in the liner notes to identify the sources of editions and/or manuscripts in use here. Yet these are uncommon pieces nonetheless, though a few have been published and some even previously recorded.
The most immediately appealing music on this disc is that of the "distant cousin," Johann Ludwig Bach whose Handelian Overture in G major is heard along with a Cantata-Symphony in D major, here referred to as a "concerto." The former work has been around for a long time and has been previously recorded; the latter is extracted and edited from a nineteenth century manuscript source of dubious origin. While one cannot say: "This certainly is not the work of Johann Ludwig Bach!" neither is one moved to agree with
Goebel that the correction of a copying error in this source "constitutes proof that the work is genuine" -- it actually sounds a little like inferior J.S. Bach. Speaking of less than prime-grade Johann Sebastian, the final work on this disc is a reconstructed concerto based on the Sinfonia which concludes Bach's Easter Oratorio, and even
Goebel is forced to admit that the third movement doesn't quite seem to work -- oh well.
This reviewer is particularly partial to the pair of sonatas by Heinrich Bach, Johann Sebastian's grand-uncle on his first wife's side (she was J.S. Bach's first cousin). These consort-like sonatas represent a throwback to Renaissance practice; the first one in C has a bitter, plagal kind of modality to it. Likewise the Battaglia of Cyriachus Wilche, alleged to be Anna Magdalena's grandfather, is eccentric and antediluvian, formulated in a sort of "Biber-lite" mode. The Sonata & Capriccio in G minor of "Signr. Pagh" is here assumed to be a work of Johann Michael Bach, Johann Sebastian's father-in-law. But it just as well could be a piece by a "Bach" who isn't known; perhaps it is even by a composer named "Pagh?" Nonetheless, it is a standout track compared to some of the others.
The most vexing aspect of Bachiana is the inclusion, a little past midway through the disc, of the Aria Eberliniana pro dormente Camilo of Johann Christoph Bach. This is a long set of 15 variations for solo harpsichord that lasts more than 16 minutes and, coming as it does in the middle of an assembly of instrumental pieces, it breaks up the continuity of the disc in a way that makes the whole seem to fall flat. This isn't helped by the circumstance that the harpsichord is recorded so much lower than the rest of the other instruments, imparting to it a far away quality when intimacy is needed. Apart from this flaw of programming, all of the music is extremely well-played and generally well-recorded, and if you are interested in what the music of what Johann Sebastian called "the Old Bachs," then this is as good a place as any to start. Just don't forget to bring your grain of salt when it comes to some of the attributions.