In his acclaimed series of C.P.E. Bach's music for solo keyboard, Miklós Spányi has constructed a programme consisting of four sonatas from the 1750's, including the closing Sonata in A major (Wq65/32), described by Dr. Darrell M. Berg in her liner notes as one of Bach’s most graceful works for keyboard. The sonatas are interspersed with a number of shorter pieces: Solfeggios and Fantasias composed mainly to be used in the teaching of Bach's own students, which included members of the nobility, as well as aspiring professional musicians such as his younger brother Johann Christian. But although they are didactic pieces they are also imbued with the ingenuity of their maker, and testify to Bach’s ability to create something original and beautiful within the time-span of one minute or less. Particularly interesting is the Fantasia in D major, Wq117/14, an example of Bach's ‘free fantasias’ which is completely unmeasured, requiring the performer to devise his or her own appropriate rhythm in the style of an improvisation. Reviewers of previous discs in this series have remarked on Miklós Spányi's approach to the rhythmical aspects of Bach's music, most recently in International Record Guide: 'Anyone expecting a chaste, Dresden-china simplicity is in for a culture schock as Spányi probes beneath the surface of Bach's highly articulate musical surfaces with a temporal plasticity that creates the impression of living, breathing musical organisms.'
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