Cracking Kuhnau from Skywalker Sound

I took two 1+1's on holiday to France in June, and was so impressed I bought another one there. Monastic Chant is a recital of 12th & 13th century European Sacred Music sung by the Theatre of Voices and directed by Paul Hillier in wonderfully atmospheric performances and recordings. Similarly William Christie's playing of Rameau's Pièces de clavecin (1724) and Nouvelles Suites de Pièces de clavecin (1728) also comes highly recommended. Strangely these entrancing Rameau pieces are not too well represented in the catalogue, so this 1+1 fills the gap nicely.

But there is an 'off the wall' streak in Kuhnau which belies his reputation for being boring. He published an early satirical novel, Der musicalische Quack-salber (The Musical Quack), and the first CD in this set is devoted to his embryonic keyboard sonatas which are called Frische Clavier-Fruchte (Fresh Keyboard Fruits). The 'off the wall' approach spreads over to the second CD; Kuhnau's Musicalische Vorstellung einiger Biblischer historien (The Biblicla Sonatas). These feature the pioneering use of mathematical structures in a fascinating prelude to the technique of J.S. Bach.
For the Kuhnau John Butt (see photo) plays harpsichord, clavichord and organ. The recordings date from Butt's peiod as an Associate Professor at Berkeley, and interestingly were made at Lucasfilm's Skywalker Sound studios in Marin County. (The organ tracks were recorded at Hertz Hall, University of California, Berkeley).

I bought the Kuhnau in the superb Harmonia Mundi shop in Avignon and paid 18 euros (£12, $21 US) for it. But these highly recommended 1+1 sets originate from Harmonia Mundi USA, and are far cheaper if bought from the US. The Kuhnau is available via Amazon marketplace seller Caiman USA for just £10 delivered to the UK, and the Amazon.com retail price is $17.98 (£10).
Although Kuhnau is a discovery for me, he is not for Hyperion who have recorded his sacred music with Robert King and the King's Consort. The audio samples indicate it is pretty exciting stuff. Try it for yourself here on an overgrown path.
Tell other readers what you think of Kuhnau's music using the comment fuction at the bottom of this post, or share this unknown composer with a friend by emailing this post, including the music links, using the envelope icon.
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Comments
It is rewarding when a relatively unknown composer emerges like this. It is also good to see the audio links proving useful. They do add more work, and I was wondering whether to continue with them.
Any other feedback welcome...