Bach, J S: Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D minor, BWV1052; No. 2 in E major, BWV1053; Concerto No. 3 in D major, BWV1054; Concerto No. 4 in A major, BWV1055; No. 5 in F minor, BWV1056; No. 7 in G minor, BWV1058; Concerto for Flute, Violin & Harpsichord in A minor, BWV1044; Concerto for Harpsichord & Two Recorders, BWV1057; Harpsichord Concerto in D minor, BWV1059 Reconstr. Esfahani

Mahan Esfahani (harpsichord), Britten Sinfonia

Peter Facer (oboe), Ian Wilson (recorder), Michala Petri (recorder), Thomas Hancox (flute), Jacqueline Shave (violin)
Recorded in the Parish Church of St. John the Baptist, Loughton, Essex

Hyperion CDA68481
https://www.hyperion-records.co.uk/

Mahan Esfahani has spent years chipping away at the herculean task of recording everything Bach wrote for keyboard, and this survey of the concertos might be the most substantial instalment yet. Teaming up with the Britten Sinfonia, he takes aim at the biggest assumption of all: that the harpsichord belongs to the past. There isn't a period instrument in sight.

At the heart of the recording is the harpsichord itself, built with Prague-based maker Jukka Ollikka to Esfahani's own specification — no replica of an eighteenth-century original, but an instrument designed squarely for today's concert platform. That thinking carries through into the scoring too, with the Britten Sinfonia fielding one player to a part throughout. I went in expecting a lesson in period authenticity. I came out having forgotten the word entirely.

Esfahani's liner notes are scholarly without ever losing the reader, and his argument is a bold one: that Bach effectively invented the keyboard concerto, moving the instrument out of the continuo and into the spotlight. He goes further still, offering his own completion of the Eighth Concerto, BWV1059 — long known only in fragmentary form — and giving it its first outing on disc.

All eight keyboard concertos are here, alongside the Triple Concerto in A minor, BWV1044, and the playing throughout is sublime — joyous, with every bar architecturally moulded. The D minor, BWV1052, has a cadenza worth the price of admission alone, played with exquisite, expressive attention to detail. My favourite, though, is the D major, BWV1054 — pure delight from the first bar to the last.

The attack is perfectly judged, the sound clear and beautifully balanced, with the keyboard exactly where it should be: centre stage. There's real spark running right through the disc, and it comes as much from the partnership with the Britten Sinfonia as from Esfahani himself — urgent, alive, full of colour.

Listen once and you'll hear something new in music you thought you knew backwards. I certainly did, and I've been living with these concertos for the best part of forty years.