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Retrospect Ensemble - Bach: Harpsichord Concertos - The Sunday Times

18 November 2012
The Sunday Times
Hugh Canning

After a period during which pianists have again laid claim to Bach's keyboard concertos, it is refreshing to encounter them in a context that their composer might have recognised: music da camera, or chamber music. At least, that is how these glorious concertos come across in Matthew Halls's nimble, improvisatory hands, and those of his five string colleagues and two recorder players. Halls directs the performance from the harpsichord, never dominating the tuttis, but exploiting a free-ranging fantasy in his stylishly decorated solo passages. The concertos sound pristine and revealed anew, like cleaned Old Master paintings. More, please.

Retrospect Ensemble - Bach: Harpsichord Concertos - The Sunday Times

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