Almost everyone who has tried to play a keyboard instrument at even the most rudimentary level has picked out
Bach
's
Minuet in G major
from the
Notebooks for Anna Magdalena Bach
, but few performers have recorded large selections from the
Notebooks
, and even scholars have been slow to think about what they're like. They are compilations for domestic music-making, copied out apparently by
Anna Magdalena
herself,
's second wife. There are two
; the second one is generously excerpted here by keyboardist
Mahan Esfahani
. There are some vocal pieces (including a pretty funny anti-tobacco screed) sung here by soprano
Carolyn Sampson
; she tones her voice down to domestic levels in a delightful way. Some of the music is by
J.S. Bach
, but other pieces are by the teenage
C.P.E. Bach
or (possibly)
J.C. Bach
, other German composers, and even a
Rondeau from the Pieces de Clavecin
of
Francois Couperin
. It adds up to a worthwhile portrait of the music the Bachs had around the house and enjoyed.
Esfahani
is marvelously alert to the points of interest in each piece, and he deploys the quiet clavichord and an only slightly more powerful harpsichord accurately (although the booklet has him switching between harpsichord and clavichord in the excerpt from the
Cantata No. 82, Ich habe genug
, and it does not sound as though this occurs).
Hyperion
engineers recorded the music in a church but then tried to simulate a domestic atmosphere by keeping everything at very low dynamic levels; listeners may or may not find this to their liking, and simply using a smaller space might have been better. However, this modest little recording, one of a long series of distinctive
albums from
, offers as much insight into the master as any number of more ambitious releases. The album hit classical best-seller charts in the spring of 2023. ~ James Manheim