Johann Sebastian Bach: Kleine Präludien - Kenneth Gilbert

Johann Sebastian Bach
Kleine Präludien
Kenneth Gilbert
Archiv 419 426-2

Everyone who has sat at a piano stool at a tender age will find old friends amongst the pieces comprising this delightful anthology. Kenneth Gilbert has arranged his programme in four parts. First he plays the eight Preludes, BWV924-31, of the Clavier-Buchlein which Bach compiled in 1720 for his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, then aged ten; he follows these with the Six Little Preludes, BWV933-8, and five further Preludes, BWV939-43. A sixth in C minor, BWV999, is also included but was evidently intended for lute. These, like the 1720 pieces, probably belong to the Cothen period. The fourth part of Gilbert's recital consists of pieces on a larger scale. The two Preludes and little fugues, BWV901-02, also date from Cothen. The Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in Eflat, BWV998, is primarily a lute work, and is included in the same volume of the Neue Bachausgabe as BWV999. Where the Fantasia and Fugue in A minor, BWV904, is concerned, one surviving source implies an organ work whilst another the harpsichord. It is also possible that the two pieces may not always have belonged together. Sometimes ascribed to Bach's Cothen period it would seem to me to belong to an altogether later date.

Kenneth Gilbert gives a lively and affectionate account of the smaller pieces whose substance, nevertheless, should not be underestimated. In the larger works his technique and experience contribute towards fluent and cogent readings. Above all, perhaps, he captures the deliberately archaic character of BWV904 with forceful and deliberate gestures in the Fantasia and with clarity of thought in the fine double fugue. This didactic side of Gilbert's artistry also serves the little Preludes whose purpose was not only to entertain but also to instruct. The harpsichord, a seventeenth-century Flemish instrument enlarged first by Blanchet and then by Taskin in the following century, is that which Gilbert used for his recording of the 48 (Archiv 413 439-1AH5, 9/84). It's a fine-sounding instrument whose character has been well captured in this recital. Warmly recommended.

Nicholas Anderson, Gramophone Magazine 1986