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Reviewer: Fabrice Fitch I’ve followed Café Zimmermann with great interest down the years, and this latest addition to their catalogue is no less intriguing than the others. The ‘imaginary music book’ concept is perhaps a little thin (the brief programme note barely attempts to flesh it out) but the idea of bookending the recital with a trio sonata by CPE Bach and the Sonata from the Musical Offering (composed within a year or so of each other) is ingenious and works very well. The rest consists of selections culled from here and there (some of them arranged, including a couple perhaps by Mozart, no less) for Café Zimmermann’s core membership (violinist and leader Pablo Valetti, cellist Petr Skalka and harpsichordist Céline Frisch, here joined by flautist Karel Valter). In this strippeddown guise they offer an unapologetically chamber recital, and sound as clear and precise as I can remember. There are fewer of the rough edges of their early Bach offerings, and although I found these charming, the greater polish afforded here may well win them new friends. They capture very well the difference in spirit between JS and CPE (I wouldn’t mind hearing them turn their hand to Wilhelm Friedemann), and it’s arguably the inclusion of the latter that prevents the recital from appearing monolithic. There’s usually a particular moment in Café Zimmermann’s recitals that has me sitting up and listening particularly intently. Here it’s the final selection, when the three sustaining instruments join together to ‘sing’ the chorale Vor deinen Thron, accompanied by Céline Frisch in the setting that Bach supposedly composed just before his death. This hint of Frescobaldi (via Froberger) extends the timeline in the opposite direction from Bach’s son and Mozart’s arrangement: it’s elegant and subtle, like so much else here. |
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