Müthel: Duets and Sonatas for Harpsichord [3 CDs]

Johann Gottfried Müthel (1728 – 1788) was the last pupil of the great Johann Sebastian Bach. He was present at the master’s deathbed, and he performed the funeral services, taking over the duties of the deceased Cantor. Mühtel’s music (“full of novelty, taste and grace” according to the great art historian and traveller Charles Burney) is of a wide variety, and written mainly for the keyboard (organ and harpsichord). Müthel’s music can be traced stylistically to the empfindsamer Stil or ‘sentimental style’, which blended passages rich in emotional nuance and strong harmonic contrasts with use of rhetoric and counterpoint and sparkling improvisational techniques. This new recording presents solo sonatas and duets for two keyboards by Müthel, highly original works which show that Müthel was an excellent keyboard player and improviser. Played by Anna Clemente and Giacomo Benedetti, two keyboard players who won their spurs in the performance of hidden gems of the Baroque and (Early) Classical Period, on the basis of the Historically Informed Performance Practice.