J. S. Bach: Concerto for Three Harpsichords in C major (BWV 1064) - Růžičková, Sebestyén, Roblou

J. S. Bach (1685-1750): Concerto for Three Harpsichords and Strings in C major (BWV 1064)

[00:00] I. Allegro
[06:23] II. Adagio
[13:12] III. Allegro

Zuzana Růžičková, harpsichord I
János Sebestyén, harpsichord II
David Roblou, harpsichord III

Czech Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra
Petr Škvor, conductor

Recorded April 1983

David Roblou shares his experience making this recording:

I remember those concerts and recordings as a wonderful experience; culturally a world apart from things in the West at the time, but hugely stimulating and rewarding! An Anglo-Czechophile named Margot Leigh Milner, a friend of Zuzana's, recommended me and I was invited to take part! Simple as that! The C major for three was Zuzana playing 1st, János 2nd and me 3rd, as I recall. The cadenza in the 2nd part is hard and János brought it off with enormous aplomb; he had a wonderful technique. I knew the instruments would be rather "rum" by our standards - however, Zuzana played an instrument by a (Swiss?) maker called Zahl which was edging towards classical models. (The instruments were tuned by Petr Šefl, a great character, who had already built an Italian copy.) Two things struck me: you had to hit them hard for them to work! Despite that, the technical standards of my colleagues were superb. In other words, there were things they could do in which I lagged behind and vice versa. Nowadays English is the 2nd language; in the 80s in the East it was Russian and German. Giedré and I had to communicate in German, Zuzana is fluent in everything and János' English was developing, especially his sense of English humour... that was delightful! What's so nice is that, despite the cultural gap at the time, in terms of instruments, playing style, etc., the performances feel so authentic, in the sense of feeling for tempo, rhythm, etc. And throughout the strings make a wonderful sound, again despite a rather "picky" approach (which is how I'd define it nowadays); but they were incapable of playing unmusically! It's all reminded me what a pleasure, as well as a cross-cultural experience, it was playing those pieces with all those wonderful players!

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