What a brilliant idea to couple J.S. Bach's Harpsichord Concerto in D minor, BWV 1052, with C.P.E. Bach's Harpsichord Concerto in D minor, H 427! Both works, the father's and the son's, are powerful works with emotional themes, dramatic forms, and cadenzas that only a virtuoso could play. Plus, for all their virtuoso display, both works are at heart deeply expressive works that refuse to pander to mere technique. Thankfully, in this 1981 recording by
Gustav Leonhardt, both works have a champion who, for all his tremendous technique, is less interested in displaying it than in getting to the heart of the works' expressivity.
Leonhardt had recorded the J.S. Bach Harpsichord Concerto before and he would record it again, but this recording is every bit as fine as the best of them. But this is
Leonhardt's only recording of C.P.E. Bach's D minor concerto and he gives it the performance of a lifetime. For all its structural and harmonic strangeness, C.P.E.'s Sturm und Drang concerto sounds completely compelling and nearly as good as J.S.'s high Baroque concerto. Seon's original sound was rich and real, and Sony's digital remastering is every bit as rich, if not quite as real.