Danny Driver's third disc for Hyperion is a horse of a different color from his first two. Those covered the rich, post-Romantic music of York Bowen, music that bears little in common with the music of C.P.E. Bach. About the only thing in common between the two composers is that they performed and wrote for keyboard instruments. Yet their music -- as divergent as their styles are -- appeals to Driver. The Bach sonatas included here are three of the six Prussian Sonatas framed by two slightly later sonatas, including the ...
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Danny Driver's third disc for Hyperion is a horse of a different color from his first two. Those covered the rich, post-Romantic music of York Bowen, music that bears little in common with the music of C.P.E. Bach. About the only thing in common between the two composers is that they performed and wrote for keyboard instruments. Yet their music -- as divergent as their styles are -- appeals to Driver. The Bach sonatas included here are three of the six Prussian Sonatas framed by two slightly later sonatas, including the fantasia-like Sonata in G minor, H47, unpublished in Bach's lifetime. Together these show Bach to be a highly individual composer, taking elements of traditional Baroque keyboard writing and morphing them into new forms with new expressive qualities. What marks all of these, and maybe what appeals to Driver, is the way moods shift and change in each movement, often suddenly and in unexpected directions. One moment the music dances along in a lightly animated manner, then suddenly it...
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