BACH Fantasy – Ch. Rousset, harpsi. – Aparte

BACH Fantasy = Fantasia in a, BWV 922; Fantasia and Fugue in a, BWV 904; Prelude and Fugue in F, BWV 901; Capriccio sopra la lontananza fratello dilettissimo in B-flat, BWV 922; Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro in E-flat, BWV 998; Adagio in G from Violin Sonata in C, BWV 968; Prelude and Fughetta in G, BWV 902; Aria variata in a, BWV 989 – Christophe Rousset, harpsichord – Aparte 010, 76:23 [Distr. by Harmonia mundi] ****:
Rousset has been so active in recent years as a conductor—successfully, I might add—that his studio work has suffered somewhat. So it is a great pleasure to see this new album on a new label (to me anyway) that seems an offshoot of Harmonia mundi. The program chosen is an excellent one, featuring independent works of Bach spanning his entire career, chestnuts picked from the Bachian tree that would not otherwise be gathered together in such a way, from the early Aria variata in a—as about as un-Goldbergian as you can get, focusing on the melody aspect of the variation instead of the bass line—or the Capriccio sopra la lontananza fratello dilettissimo, an Italianate work that is one of the master’s earliest keyboard compositions, to the fully mature and masterly BWV 904 Fantasia and Fugue.

Rousset uses a restored 1632 Iaonnes Ruckers harpsichord that now has, since 1745, a double manual instrument that displays warmth and a brilliant sound at once, though Rousset is not a player to be content with too much esoteric meandering but instead likes to put the harpsichord front and center, slightly aggressive, and always as a commanding presence. The sound is vivid and well-centered though close, about as good a recording of this tricky-to-capture instrument as I have heard.
If you want some excellent Bach harpsichord miscellanea, look no further.
— Steven Ritter