On this entry in Naxos' Eighteenth Century Keyboard series, C.P.E. Bach: Sonatas and Rondos, young Austrian pianist
Christopher Hinterhuber plays through a very well-chosen selection from J.S. Bach's "son number two's" staggering keyboard output on a modern piano. As C.P.E. Bach's music sounds more like Beethoven than it does his father's, or for that matter, any of his contemporaries, it works very well on a modern piano, and
Hinterhuber does everything here considerable justice within a classical tempo, particularly Bach's transparently expressive, yet manic-depressive Sonata in F sharp minor, Wq. 52/4. If there is any reservation to be had about these performances, it is that
Hinterhuber does not take it out into a bit more of a romantic territory than he does. He is a tad cold, and this music seems to benefit from some measure of give and take -- just compare
Glenn Gould's reading of the Sonata in A minor, Wq. 49/1 or, if you can find them on vinyl, Artur Balsam's radiant and sensitive readings of C.P.E. Bach on Musical Heritage Society. Nevertheless, for an introduction to keyboard music of Bach son number two, played in a historically correct manner on a modern instrument, this fits the bill.