Wilhelm Friedemann Bach: Piano Works – Spiri

   in Piano International (Jul, 2015)
There are relatively few recordings of Wihelm Friedemann Bach’s keyboard works, and fewer still that are performed on a modern piano, so we are fortunate to have this disc by the US-born pianist Anthony Spiri. It’s a partial reissue of his 2007 W F Bach disc, Three Fantasias / Three Fugues / Three Sonatas, also on Oehms. Three of those compositions, then attributed to W F Bach, were later found to be by Johann Wilhelm Haßler, so Spiri has replaced them here with authentic Friedemann works: a fantasia in D minor and sonatas in E-flat major (F5) and C major (F2).

Wilhelm Friedemann’s reputation as Bach’s wayward eldest son may …