Despite the available neat periodization of Johann Sebastian Bach's career according to his places of employment, the music of the young Bach, who as the title of this album indicates was above all a keyboard virtuoso, has not been much explored as such on programs and recordings. There are several reasons: some of Bach's music is not easily datable, and it is almost all mature, with few pieces identifiable as youthful works. Still, the idea is attractive, with a wealth of biographical details available to fill out the picture. Harpsichordist
Ewald Demeyere alludes to several of them, above and beyond Bach's celebrated trek of hundreds of miles to visit Buxtehude. And he delivers impressively confident readings of flashy works, mostly not much heard, that show connections with Buxtehude and with music by other seventeenth century composers. The Preludio in A minor, BWV 922 (track 6), is an exciting early counterpart to the large repeating-figure architectures of such works as the Toccata and Fugue in D minor for organ, BWV 565 (recently of disputed authorship).
Demeyere's program is ambitious and moves into some controversial territory. The authorship of the Suite in A major, VWV 832, is disputed and has a certain un-Bachian thinness in
Demeyere's reading. And the harpsichordist reconstructs one work, the Fantasia and Fughetta, BWV 908, from figured-bass notation, and remakes another wholesale -- the Prelude in Fugue in A minor, BWV 894, which Bach himself later reworked as the Triple Concerto for flute, violin, harpsichord, and orchestra, BWV 1044.
Demeyere devises and performs a sort of intermediate version between the two, with an expanded opening, a more balanced division of the music between the hands, and various other changes. This sort of speculation may be of dubious utility, but the performance is convincing.
Demeyere's harpsichord, a replica of a small instrument known to have been owned by Bach at this time, has a quiet, sparkling sound, and his program makes an interesting contribution to the picture of Bach, a composer who seems timeless, in his time.