Hässler: Keyboard Sonatas

Benuzzi, Michele

95225

As Michele Benuzzi himself explains in a booklet-essay, the idea for this comprehensive collection came about through the success of his smaller, 1CD survey of harpsichord music by Johann Wilhelm Hässler on Brilliant Classics (BC94293), released in 2012. Since then he has gone on to record no less stimulating Baroque discoveries, of music by Josep Galles (BC95228) and Christoph Nichelmann (BC94809). J.W. Hässler (1747-1822) is not to be confused with Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612), whose music has hitherto been better nown and more frequently recorded. Born three years before the death of J.S. Bach, J.W. Hässler’s style embraces both the high-Baroque idiom and then the more edgy, episodic pre-Classical style of his sons, C.P.E. and W.F. Bach. Featured here are three published collections, published in Germany between 1776 and 1780 which reveal him moving from one into the other. Mozart was fairly scathing about him upon the occasion of their one encounter, in Dresden in 1789 – ‘incapable of executing a fugue properly’ – but five years later Hässler moved to St Petersburg where he secured local fame and a small fortune.

CD x 4

Muzyka klasyczna

Brilliant Classics

13-11-2019

5028421952253