Search - Dietrich Buxtehude, Glen Wilson :: Buxtehude: Harpsichord Works

Entertaining except for the feature piece

Don | Wilmington, Germany | 09/24/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I'm not familiar with any of these pieces, but the album is very enjoyable. Perhaps these pieces were meant to be played on the organ, but the use of harpsichord enables the separate voices and melodic lines to be heard clearly. My favorite pieces are the toccara and two preludes (G major and G minor), especially the G minor.



My quibble with the album is the featured "La Capricciosa" variations. Don't imagine that you will hear a work of the complexity of the Goldberg or Diabelli variations. It's really more of a pedagogical piece. The theme is prominent in all variations and frankly gets tiresome after only a few (after all, Bach only used it - heavily elaborated - once in Goldberg). Naxos has then grouped 4 or 5 variations into the same CD track, making it difficult to know when an old one has stopped and a new one begun. Worst of all is the complete lack of notes to explain the variations. Only the humorous "bad taste" variation is identified. So unless one is very knowledegable about 17th century keyboard music, it is difficult to appreciate what Buxtehude is doing in every variation.



That being said, the muted variation (#16?) is gorgeous and my favorite of all of them.



But buy the album. The rest is excellent."