Johann Sebastian Bach - Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach - Johann Adam Reincken - Wilhelm Friedemann Bach - Johann Gottfried Müthel

Kinship

Sigrun Stephan

Label: Challenge Classics
Format: CD
Barcode: 0608917276428

Catalog number: CC 72764
Releasedate: 08-09-17

- A cleverly thought-out and realized disc about J.S. Bach and his kindred spirits.
- The clavichord is the softest but most sensitive, and perhaps most soulful, member of the keyboard instrument family.
- Sigrun Stephan displays a full comprehension of the music as a fruit of a deep sensitivity and a thorough musicological training.

Who is akin to whom? Are they spiritual or elective kinships? In the first instance, all the pieces recorded here are akin to each other in that they are especially suitable for that most sensitive of all keyboard instruments, the clavichord. Beauty is another common feature, which they each display in their own way. And in the circle of fifths these pieces are very close to one another.

Personal and familial kinships become apparent with the name of BACH. It is also known that Johann Sebastian chose J.A. Reincken, around forty years his senior, as his teacher: Reincken can certainly be described as a musical father, a true kindred spirit, to J.S. Bach. Johann Gottfried Müthel slots into the ensemble as a logical consequence. He was J.S. Bach’s last pupil who had participated in transcribing The Art of Fugue and who composed in a consistently new and non-contrapuntal style. In this respect, he is musically much closer to Bach’s sons Carl Philipp Emanuel and Wilhelm Friedemann, almost a brother to them.