Music for a King

Works by CPE & JS Bach, CH & JG Graun, Quantz, et al Florilegium

Channel Classics CCS41819

98:52 mins (2 discs)

For decades after his death in 1786, ‘Old Fritz’ (as Frederick the Great was affectionately nicknamed) was idealised as the perfect Enlightened king, musician and patron, and his musical gatherings lived on in German cultural memory throughout the 19th century. This two-disc set offers a taste of the chamber works that would have echoed round the flute-playing monarch’s court, opening with JS Bach’s Ricercar à 3 from the Musical Offering – the piece ‘Old Bach’ (as he, in turn, was nicknamed!) supposedly extemporised on a theme provided by the king. It concludes with a warbling duet for flute and violin by Frederick’s court harpsichordist, Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. Between them, Florilegium unveils some less familiar but always felicitous music, ranging from the fragile sounds of a solo clavichord to a vibrant quintet for the unusual scoring of flute, violin, gamba, cello and harpsichord.

Among the highlights is the flute sonata by Johann Gottfried Müthel (papa Bach’s last pupil), its fluid rhetoric eloquently aired by flautist Ashley Solomon and Julian Perkins (clavichord). Perkins also chooses the delicate clavichord for the eclectic ‘little Andante’ with variations by Carl Friedrich Christian Fasch, realised here with supple technique and pliant expression. One might have wished for more yielding performances of the sonatas by CH Graun and

Franz Benda, for cello and violin respectively, but the ensemble playing really takes wing in JG Graun’s Quintet, with its filmy textures and mercurial changes of mood. Kate Bolton-porciatti PERFORMANCE ★★★★ RECORDING ★★★★