Bach: Harpsichord Concertos, BWV 1052, 1054, 1055 & 1059

Harpsichordist Steven Devine is a big-hearted musician with a correspondingly generous feeling for expressive music-making. His vision of Bach’s concertos for solo harpsichord and strings, played here with one instrument per part, graces the composer’s singing lines with countless details of articulation and phrasing and emphasises the lively dialogue between the keyboard and its companions. Listen to the finale of the Concerto in D minor BWV 1052, for instance, delivered at pace yet with every part crystal clear. Or sample the “Adagio e piano sempre” from the Concerto in D major BWV 1054, which emerges here as a coruscating mix of ancient and forward-looking styles. Devine concludes with his persuasive reconstruction of the Concerto in D minor BWV 1059, remarkable not least for its rhythmic freedom and Katharina Spreckelsen’s consummate oboe playing.