Luogo e data di registrazione		Schloß Bad Krozingen, Baden-Württemberg (Germania) - 1981
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Recording Supervision		Paul Dery
	Edizione LP		TELEFUNKEN - 6.42633 AP - (1 LP - durata 48' 54") - (p) 1981 - Analogico
	Originale LP		TOCCATA - FSM 53 639 - (1 LP - durata 48' 54") - (p) 1981 - Analogico
	Prima Edizione CD		FSM Adagio - FCD 91 639 - (1 CD - durata 48' 54") - (c) 1989 - AAD
	Note		Produced by Toccata

The present view of a concerto as being a composition for one or more solo instruments and orchestra was by no means generally accepted in the first half of the 18th century. Thus Johann Adolf Scheibe, in his "Critischer Musicus" (1737-1740) regarded the criterion of concertante writing as being the competition between two or more soloists, rather than between an instrumental solo and the orchestral tutti. According to him concertante movements were primarily those “in which two or more concerted parts vie with one another ... for they must always be made to work and compete with each other.” This older principle of “concertizing” had, however, already been partially abandoned by Johann Ludwig Krebs in his Concerto in A minor for two harpsichords and been replaced in many respects by the newer approach; in that respect its style is the most advanced of the three concertos in this recording. While the first harpsichord maintains its position as a solo instrument virtually throughout, the second harpsichord is treated as a continuo instrument for long stretches at a time and only occasionally attains equal status with the first. The works of Krebs, who was one of Johann Sebastian Bach’s favourite pupils, occupy the middle ground between those of the master and his sons. Although the three movements of the Concerto in A minor neither display the motivic tension or structure of the Cantor of St. Thomas’s, nor emulate the intensive expressiveness of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach’s empfindsam style, they are imbued with an al fresco quality and freshness. In Christoph Schaffrath’s duet for two harpsichords in A minor, the two instruments play together as equals. This still unpublished little work by the court composer of Frederick the Great is as well constructed as it is attractive. Only the two keyboard parts of Johann Sebastian Bach’s Concerto in C for two harpsichords (BWV 1061) written in Leipzig, probably between 1727 and 1730, are in his own hand. The four-part accompaniment for string orchestra, which is traditionally played with them, exists only in copies written out long after his death. From this one cannot but surmise that the accompaniment was added later in order to comply with newer conceptions of the requirements for a concerto. The orchestral writing is so inadequate and lacking in substance that it amply confirms the suspicions aroused by the circumstances in which it has been handed down. Insofar as the strings are ever given a chance, they almost always play colla parte with the harpsichords, which are playing a duet on their own; occasionally they reinforce an already existing effect in the interplay of solo and tutti, but they never develop a life of their own. The present recording takes account of these observations and dispenses with the orchestral accompaniment altogether, since it would only impede a convincing interpretation of this magnificent work. (Translation: Lindsay Craig)