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Krieger - Complete Harpsichord and Organ Music | Brilliant Classics 95873

Krieger - Complete Harpsichord and Organ Music

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Label: Brilliant Classics

Cat No: 95873

Barcode: 5028421958736

Format: CD

Number of Discs: 2

Genre: Instrumental

Release Date: 14th August 2020

Contents

Artists

Alejandro Casal (harpsichord, organ)

Works

Krieger, Johann

Anmuthige Clavier-Ubung
Musicalische Partien (6)

Artists

Alejandro Casal (harpsichord, organ)

About

Johann Krieger (1652-1735) won the esteem of Handel, no less, for the skill of his counterpoint and the inventive power of his organ music. For the theorist Mattheson, Krieger was likewise the pre-eminent exponent of complex counterpoint in his generation. Yet music-lovers have hitherto been able to sample Krieger’s work only in excerpted compilations. The present album occupies a unique place in the catalogue as by far the most extensive survey of Krieger on disc, containing his two published collections of keyboard music.

CD1 is filled with the six harpsichord suites which were published in 1697 in Krieger’s home town of Nürnberg, though by then the composer himself was employed as an organist in the Saxon town of Zittau: a post he filled for 54 years until his death. The Suites are themselves prefaced by an elaborate fantasia, and they contain the standard sequence of dance numbers – allemandes, courantes, sarabandes and gigues.

Published two years later, the Anmuthige Clavier-Übung was probably written earlier, and functions as a small library of preludes, ricercares, fugues, fantasias, toccatas and a chaconne, which are not grouped together by key. Both collections make clear that Krieger deserves to rank with Fischer, Kuhnau and Pachelbel as one of the outstanding German keyboard composers of the generation before Bach.

The Seville-born keyboard player Alejandro Casal has worked with many luminaries of the early-music world such as Gustav Leonhardt, Alan Curtis and Giuliano Carmignola. For his debut on Brilliant Classics he made the first recording of the complete ricercars, fugues and sonatas by Sebastián de Albero (95187).

‘Casal performs this sometimes odd music with a forceful and vibrant manner. He is often very direct in his use of the keyboards and strict rhythms, but he doesn’t miss a note of the often strange harmonies, allowing them to appear in just an abrupt a fashion as the composer intended… Casal brings to life Albero’s music in a new and vibrant manner.’ – Fanfare magazine, November 2016.

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