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American Record Guide: (05/2020) 
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Reviewer: Bradley Lehman
 

The booklet says nothing about any of the performers beyond listing their names. Fortin is well known. Frankenberg is a Dutch freelance musician who plays both harpsichord and natural horn (elsewhere). Ensemble Masques is a string quintet. The harpsichords are German-styled modern copies. We get all three double concertos: S 1060 in C minor (sometimes played on violin and oboe), S 1061 in C major, and S 1062 in C minor (Bach’s transcription of his two-violin concerto). The ensemble plays in tune and together, but there is little personality to this interpretation. There is slight rushing in the finale of the first concerto, perhaps stemming from a mismatched digital edit. Readers will have their own favorites, not challenged by these performances. I surveyed some good alternatives in longer reviews of Bach’s concertos (N/D 2018) and double concertos (J/A 2016): Woolley, Belder, Mortensen, et al.

The E-flat Prelude and Fugue (S 552) is in a simple uncredited arrangement for two harpsichords. From the sound of it, one player handles two or three of the top parts for the organ’s manuals. The other one plays the remainder, sometimes adding octaves to the pedal part, with some of the harpsichord’s bass strings tuned down to extend the range to low E-flat. Not much else happens noticeably,

other than “clarifying a wealth of detail” as the essay suggests. The fugue is better than the prelude. Fortin and Frankenberg could have been more enterprising than this, perhaps improvising some continuo chords or distributing the parts antiphonally. It’s clean and transparent, but understandably lacking the power of the organ original or the color of Schoenberg’s orchestration. Their tuning scheme doesn’t do well with the notes D-flat, G-flat, and C-flat, making some spots briefly sour. Takahashi & Lehmann (M/A 2020) recently recorded a more stimulating performance on a piano, playing Max Reger’s duet arrangement.

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