Sonate a quattro

Fasch: Sonata for 2 Violins, Viola & Continuo in D minor,; Goldberg: Sonata in C minor; Handel: Sonata in G, Op. 5 No. 4; Janitsch: Quatuor in D; Telemann: Sonata à 4

Johannes Pramsohler (violin); Ensemble Diderot

Audax ADX11201 55:56 mins

Poised between the Baroque trio sonata and the Classical string quartet, these works for two violins, viola and basso continuo by Baroque bigwigs Handel and Telemann and some of their less well-known contemporaries make for a stimulating programme.

The music ranges from rigorous Teutonic counterpoint to the breezy galant style of the mid-18th century.

Harpsichordist-composer Johann Gottlieb Goldberg – the original performer of the Goldberg Variations – may also have been a pupil of Bach, and certainly his C minor Quartet Sonata has all the contrapuntal rigour of his probable teacher. Johann Friedrich Fasch looks both back and forwards in his Sonata à 4, whose fugal writing gives way to lyrical and soloistic passages. The felicitous G major Sonata by Handel (an adaptation of his Trio Sonata

Op. 5 No. 4) scurries and banters and dances, while Telemann’s A minor Quartet is an eclectic medley of programmatic imitations of a hunt, fleet fugato writing and a Corellian last movement. The world-premiere recording of Johann Gottlieb Janitsch’s Quatuor in D major brings things to a close, its airy melodies and transparent textures epitomising the elegant style galant.

Ensemble Diderot’s performances balance grace and gravitas in equal measure. The playing is stylish, agile, incisive – above all, characterised by rhetorical articulation, rhythmic drive (at times, a shade unyielding) and a robust, sinewy sound. The detailed recording in a fairly dry acoustic spotlights individual lines and details, so even the more complex contrapuntal textures are lucid. Kate Bolton-porciatti PERFORMANCE ★★★★

RECORDING ★★★★