Mahan Esfahani Releases New Album: J.S. Bach – The Complete Keyboard Concertos with Britten Sinfonia
Rayfield Allied is delighted to celebrate the release of Mahan Esfahani’s latest recording, J.S. Bach – The Complete Keyboard Concertos, made in collaboration with the Britten Sinfonia. The album is now available worldwide and has already been met with widespread critical acclaim.
“it’s an electric recording because Esfahani states quite clearly that Bach was the first composer of the keyboard concerto and in trimming down the forces and bringing the keyboard front and centre we really hear the brilliance of that sound…It was Mendelssohn that said that every generation has a duty to redefine Bach, and Mahan Esfahani and his colleagues are rising to the challenge with something brilliant, immediate and vital….Esfahani wants us to think of this music as being absolutely contemporary, and he wanted to find a group of players with whom he could make it feel like that.” – Andrew Matthews-Owen , BBC Radio 3 Record Review
“A bold switch-up from Esfahani, and yet not out of character - a harpsichordist as well-known for his explorations of the contemporary repertoire as he is for his accounts of the Baroque classics pairing with the Britten Sinfonia for a modern-instrumental performance of Bach's complete keyboard concertos. Fans of Esfahani's Bach series will not want to miss this - a real treat of an album.” - David Smith, Presto Music (New Release Round-up)
“these are hugely enjoyable performances, superbly balanced, one big gain being that the strings never feel subservient, the keyboard always in a dialogue with equals. Take the bright opening movement of Concerto No. 3, violinist Jacqueline Shave and colleagues singing like birds while Esfahani purrs away underneath. The major-key concertos have rarely sounded so upbeat, No. 4’s elegant finale one of the highlights of the set. No. 6, a joyous recasting of Bach’s 4th Brandenburg Concerto, features Michala Petri alongside Ian Wilson on recorders… Especially intriguing is Esfahani’s reconstruction of an unfinished 8th Concerto in D minor, based on material from the cantata Geist und Seele wird verwirret, two sinfonia movements linked by a harpsichord cadenza. The A minor Triple Concerto is included, despite Esfahani’s doubts about its authenticity, Shave and flautist Thomas Hancox on terrific form in the central “Adagio”. This is a wonderful, set, stylishly played and directed, beautifully recorded and very well annotated.” - Graham Rickson, The Arts Desk
Mahan also performed works from the album as Artist in Residence at Leipzig Bach Festival earlier this month.
“he played Bach's Partitas — a sequence of stylized dances — with masterful concentration and precision on modern grand pianos. In the late-night recital, Iranian-American harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani interpreted Bach's Partita No. 1 on the harpsichord in a completely different, yet highly sophisticated manner… Esfahani breathed new life into Johann Sebastian Bach's Partitas during the concert, bringing evident joy to the audience.” – Gaby Reucher, Deutsche Welle
