Back in the good old days one knew who recorded performers were, because the record publishers took pains to tell you. Take the 1915 Columbia catalogue, for instance. In it I find that Georges Barrère was the The World's Most Distinguished Flutist, Edward Johnson, The Favorite American Tenor, Kathleen Parlow, The World's Greatest Woman Violinist, and Eugene Ysaye, The Greatest Violinist of all Time, no less! You weren't left guessing; you knew exactly where you were at!
Nowadays things are different. Take the case of Luciano Sgrizzi. I first encountered him as the arranger of the mediaeval Italian Laudario di Cortona'" Nonesuch disc more than a dozen years ago. Since then, he has appeared on various labels as player of harpsichord, fortepiano, and piano, solo, as accompanist, and with orchestra. He is evidently of a musicological bent, for he loves to come up with out-of-the-way things. At one time he appears to have been affiliated with Edwin Loehrer's Lugano group. He has some twenty recordings on the market-- and of the umpteen that I have, not a one offers anything more than his name! Is this a way to run a business? Apparently. Today they wouldn't bother to tell you who Horowitz is.
Anyhow, here is Signor Sgrizzi once more with some concerti written by some of the Bach progeny, physical and spiritual. We start off with the eleventh concerto by the youngest Bach, Johann Christian, the "London'" Bach, heir to his father's shirts and mentor to young Wolfie Mozart. The work was published as the penultimate piece of Op. 7 somewhere around 1770 and dedicated to Queen Charlotte Sophia, wife to George III. Perhaps it was a fitting dedication, since Dr. Burney noted that the concerti were "such as ladies can execute with little trouble." (Lest the good Dr. be thought a sexist, it should be remembered that he brought up his daughter Fanny to more than hold her own in a man's world.) Another recording of this work terms it "Concerto for Harpsichord and Orchestra," but the fact is that Christian meant it for the newfangled "piano e forte,"--a name that means "soft and loud," reflecting the instrument's dynamic range. Signor Sgrizzi plays it on fortepiano (loud-soft'"), a name some people like to give to the wood-frame pianos of that era.
The C minor concerto of Kirnberger would, up until a few years ago, have made this a 'Sons of Bach" record, for it was published as a composition by the Scapegrace Wilhelm Friedemann. Johann Philipp Kirnberger was born in Saalfeld just two years before the Cantor made his final move to Leipzig. He learned Bach's music from his organ teacher, who sent him to Leipzig to study with the great man. Later, like so many other musicians, he migrated to the Potsdam court of Fred the Gross, where he ended his days in 1783 as Kapellmeister to the King's sister, Princess Amalie. In his day he was known as a hotshot theoretician and as the possessor of a terrible temper, which did not prevent his training young composers like Johann Friedrich Fasch and Carl Zelter. He also played the fiddle. This may possibly be his debut on records.
Emanuel Bach wrote at least forty-one keyboard concerti. Unfortunately, we are not told just where this one in G minor fits in, nor do I find evidence of its having been committed to records before. Since it is described as being 'for harpsichord and strings,'" I should guess that it may be one of his three very early concerti for that combination that he probably wrote while still under the paternal roof in Leipzig.
