Solo Keyboard Music

Description

During his lifetime, Jean-Sébastien Bach published four volumes of piano pieces under the title Clavierübung, which began with a series of six partitas published between 1726 and 1731; among them is the Partita No. 1 in B flat major. The Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D minor were apparently written during Bach’s stay in Kothen, probably around 1720, and revised in Leipzig around 1730. The six English Suites, of which the third is included here, are nothing particularly English apart from the title. Bach compiled a series of five French Suites, of which the fifth is Idil Biret’s favorite, later expanded to six and included in the Clavierbüchlein for Anna Magdalena, his second wife. The Italian Concerto in F major was published in 1735 in the second volume of the Clavierübungen under the original title Concerto nach Italienischen Gusto. It reflects the style of Vivaldi’s Venetian solo concertos. Idil Biret began her solo career at the age of sixteen and has performed with the greatest orchestras in the world’s most important musical centers, collaborating with the most renowned conductors such as Erich Leinsdorf, Pierre Monteux, Hermann Scherchen, Gennadi Rozhdestvensky, Rafael Frühbeck de Burgos, Kazimierz Kord and Antoni Wit. She received the Lili Boulanger Memorial Award in Boston, the Harriet Cohen/Dinu Lipatti Gold Medal in London, the Polish Cross of the Order of Chivalry, the Adelaide Ristori Prize in Italy, the French Chevalier of the Ordre National du Mérite and the State Artist Award in Turkey.