Bach, Bull, Byrd, Gibbons, Hassler, Pachelbel, Ritter & Strogers: Works for Harpsichord

Featuring

Gustav Leonhardt
Hans Leo Hassler (von Roseneck)
Nicholas Strogers
William Byrd
John Bull
Orlando Gibbons

Johann Pachelbel
Johann Christoph Bach
Christian Ritter
Johann Sebastian Bach

Did you know?

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Instruments

Gustav Leonhardt always sought to match the appropriate repertoire with the appropriate instruments, befriending the best organ and harpsichord makers, including those who made the instruments on this recording.

Interpretation

Gustav Leonhardt's harpsichord technique involved a re-invention of 'keyboard polyphony' based on listening, timing, and touch, contrasting subtlety with intensity through agogic accents and rhetorical inflection.

Performer Biography

Gustav Leonhardt, the performer on this album, was primarily a harpsichordist and organist, with conducting coming later in his career.

Composer's Artistic Vision

Gustav Leonhardt believed that all instrumental music, particularly Western European repertoire before 20th-century atonal music, is somehow vocally inspired.

Cultural Impact

Gustav Leonhardt's teaching and playing led to a new generation of harpsichordists in France, making Paris a central hub for the harpsichord world.

Interpretation

Gustav Leonhardt and Nikolaus Harnoncourt pioneered the 'historically informed performance' movement by researching how 16th- to 18th-century music sounded on original instruments.

Recording & Production

This recording, along with several of Gustav Leonhardt's last, was made for a French label because Paris had become the capital of the harpsichord world.