Instrument: Harpsichord

This year’s Gala Conzert at Göttingen featured two different works not commonly heard and certainly not together, with excellent soloists and the Christ Church Cathedral Choir

Jory Vinikour was the soloist for Poulenc’s rarely heard Concert champêtre. A performance of Rachmaninov's Symphony no. 2, in which thrilling excess ruled, completed the program.

To reach the mother lode of Bach's keyboard music, you have to listen to it on harpsichord, and today, no performer embodies that mother lode more than Mahan Esfahani.

Czech harpsichord legend Zuzana Růžičková would have turned 91 on 14 January, making it an ideal night for a tribute concert featuring one of her star pupils, Iranian-American harpsichordist Mahan Esfahani. As he noted in brief remarks sandwiched between rousing renditions of Bach, “When she died, I lost a great teacher. But this country lost part of its history.

Maurice Steger brought this essential but under-represented instrument from Renaissance and Baroque chamber and ensumble music to a mainstream concert hall. 

Three concerts over one day at the opening weekend of Bachfest Leipzig combined Bach’s music with that of composers from Rachmaninov to Sibelius, but nothing matches the unrivalled bliss of Bach’s own music performed with total conviction.

Brockes-Passion is becoming not quite the performing rarity it once was, and this outstanding performance at the Göttingen Handel Festival this year could hardly be bettered.