Pianist Sebastian Knauer, playing the piano and definitely not the harpsichord, has decided to offer us, back to back, keyboard concertos by Johann Sebastian, Johann Christian and Carl Philip Emanuel Bach. True, most of the pieces are works of the patriarch, while the sons have to be content with one concerto each. However, Knauer diversifies the repertoire since one of the three concertos by Johann Sebastian is not just for keyboard, but BWV 1044 for keyboard, violin and flute – with guest artists Daniel Hope and Philipp Jundt ; this being one of the most brilliant instances of recycling, since said concerto takes its outer movements from a lost original work from which he has also crafted the Prelude and Fugue for keyboard BWV 894, while the slow movement comes from the Organ Trio Sonata BWV 527… Exemplifying the art of rewriting from sundry sources and thus crafting a brand new work of perfect unity ! As for the sons’ concertos, they launch an arc between the late Baroque and the soon-to-be Classical genres, with an intermediary stop in the Sturm and Drang region; while the keyboard writing steers to new horizons, where soloist and orchestra are more and more differentiated, while the technical demands on the keyboard are those of the newly developed fortepiano much more than of the fading harpsichord. Knauer explains that he has no intention of compete with harpsichordists or musicologists, but that his sole quest is of a musician intent upon showing aficionados how much this music is looking towards the future. © SM/Qobuz