Lindsay Kemp reviewed our CD ‘Bach’s library’ for Gramophone.

As with all the Bach Players’ recordings to date (this is their sixth), this one has its origins in a concert, and has the intelligent programme planning to prove it. ‘Bach’s Library’ is just what it says it is; not the whole thing, of course, but four pieces that Bach certainly had copies of (some in his own hand), and one – the keyboard arrangements of dances from Marais’s opera Alcide – that was in the ownership of his elder brother Johann Christoph, with whom he lived and studied as a boy.

Although the pieces here are by composers from Germany, Italy and France, it is the latter country whose musical style dominates. Dieupart’s harpsichord suites – here performed in their alternative version for flute, violin and continuo – have long been linked with Bach’s similarly formatted English Suites; the ensemble suite by cousin Johann Bernhard is French-derived, though audibly via Telemann’s influence; and even Agostino Steffani’s operatic overture begins in French style before conjuring a strong whiff of the theatre in a ‘tempest’ second section. Sebastian’s Second Orchestral Suite is a late work next to these, mixing its sweet French fluty elegance with typically Bachian textural resource.

The Bach Players are a one-to-a-part ensemble of experienced hands and play with expertise, musicality and style. Occasionally there are moments in the Dieupart and J.S. Bach when momentum seems to droop a little but they are balanced by the successes, which include a wonderfully curling and interwining Sarabande in the J.S. Bach, a sprightly Dieupart Gigue and some snappy scales in Steffani’s little storm. The recorded sound gives admirably transparent textures, though to my mind at a niggling cost in presence and warmth, especially for the first violin. But if that doesn’t trouble you, there is plenty here to like.

Gramophone, June 2013