Léon Berben's recording – the first volume of a projected series devoted to Wilhelm Friedemann Bach's keyboard music – was issued to mark the three hundredth anniversary of the composer's birth in 2010. Friedemann's tercentenary also saw the publication of two monographs (by David Schulenberg and Ulrich Kahmann respectively), while a thoroughly revised and updated version of Martin Falck's thematic catalogue of 1913 was completed by the established Bach scholar Peter Wollny in 2009 (to be published by Carus as volume 2 of the series Bach-Repertorium; the numbers are listed in Wollny, ‘Bach, §III: (8) Wilhelm Friedemann Bach’, in Grove Music Online <www.oxfordmusiconline.com> (27 February 2012)). The works selected by Berben for this CD, and performed on harpsichord, comprise an Overture in E flat (numbered by Wollny br-wfba59), two fantasias (in E minor, Fk21/br-wfba42, and D minor, br-wfb A105), two sonatas (in D major, Fk3/br-wfba4, and F major, br-wfb A10) and a Minuet in F with variations (br-wfba50b), alongside a concerto for solo keyboard (Concerto in G, Fk40/br-wfb a13b) in the manner of Johann Sebastian Bach's Italian Concerto. Together these works represent both the early and late stages of Friedemann's career; only two (the Sonata in D major and the Fantasia in E minor) have been recorded previously. Berben's recording also complements a new critical edition of the composer's oeuvre, currently in preparation under the direction of Peter Wollny (who completed a doctoral dissertation on Friedemann in 1993). The keyboard works on this disc – transmitted in manuscript copies, apart from the D major sonata – are drawn from the first two volumes of this new complete edition being produced by the Bach-Archiv Leipzig, with support from the Packard Humanities Institute, Los Altos, California, and published by Carus.

Comparisons between the music of Friedemann and that of his father are perhaps inevitable, given that the former's name is most often encountered in connection with the Clavier-Büchlein vor W. F. Bach – a manuscript collection of keyboard music compiled for pedagogical purposes by father and son in the 1720s. Friedemann's reputation has not benefited from paternal comparisons of another kind, with regard to his character. Written accounts originating from the elder Bach's first biographer, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, along with anecdotes related by Marpurg and Rochlitz appear to be partly responsible for this image, which has been perpetuated down to the present day. Amongst other failings, Friedemann was faulted for his inability to retain regular employment, and later for selling off autographs of his father's music (including a set of chorale cantatas) to pay personal debts, which has made him appear a villain in the complex history of autograph sources from J. S. Bach's estate.

Berben clearly relishes this music's distinctive features – the unexpected harmonies approaching cadences, abrupt caesuras and sometimes incongruous changes of texture – and draws attention to them, rather than attempting to smooth them out. The final work on the disc, the lengthy one-movement Fantasia in E minor, conveys some impression of the improvisations for which Friedemann was renowned. Berben is alert to the sudden changes of mood and character, capable of a lyrical cantabile tone in the recitative-like passages, and brilliant articulation in the virtuosic bravura sections; these, together with his impeccable sense of timing, bring the music's inherent drama to life. (After hearing this late fantasia it is not surprising to learn that Friedemann, in the 1770s, began work on an opera, which unfortunately remained incomplete.) Tempos are generally well chosen, and judicious manual changes (together with selective use of the lute stop) create a broad timbral range, while also emphasizing significant cadences or setting contrasting phrases in relief. Occasionally, manual changes seem questionable (midway through a phrase in the third movement (Presto) of the Sonata in F, for example), and some tempos sound dangerously fast (a rapid arpeggiated passage in the same Presto movement comes to mind), but even here Berben's risk-taking pays off. The articulation is always artfully and expressively varied; repeated sections are tastefully ornamented, especially the heartfelt second movement (Adagio) of the D major sonata, which marks a departure from the typical empfindsamer Stil in its introduction of imitative polyphony.

The harpsichord used for this recording – a copy by Keith Hill of a two-manual Christian Zell instrument from 1728, now in Hamburg's Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe – has a resonant bass and singing treble registers, which Berben exploits to the utmost. Given Berben's extensive experience as a harpsichordist and performer of early repertoire, it is regrettable that only minimal information – in German – is provided on the instrument used for this recording (liner notes are given in German, French and English). The pitch and, more importantly, the chosen temperament (which imparts a certain piquancy to Friedemann's often quirky harmonies) are not specified. Berben's performances leave no doubt that harpsichord is a valid option for this music, though fortepiano could certainly be considered for the later works (and possibly for some earlier ones too), as Robert Hill's recording has demonstrated (Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Keyboard Works, Vol. 1, Naxos 8.557966, 2005; Hill's CD includes the D major sonata br-wfba4, alongside the Twelve Polonaises, Fk12/br-wfba27–38, and the Fantasia in A minor, Fk23/br-wfba26). Wollny, in his Preface to the first volume of the new critical edition, writes that there is no firm evidence to argue for fortepiano over harpsichord, except where the range used implies the former instrument (Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, Klaviermusik I: Sonaten und Konzerte für Cembalo solo, Konzert für 2 Cembali, ed. Peter Wollny (Stuttgart: Carus, 2010), ix). Paul Simmonds has also recorded the Twelve Polonaises on clavichord (W. F. Bach, Polonaises and Fugues, LIR Classics 014, 2004), a possibility not mentioned by Wollny. Friedemann had the D major sonata published in Dresden in 1745, the first of an intended set of six (though only two were actually issued); the title, Sei sonate per il cembalo, would make harpsichord the most likely choice.

Wollny's liner notes and concise biographical sketch provide a good contextual overview, although the latter strikes an almost apologetic tone with regard to Friedemann's faltering career and temperamental character, examined in more detail in recent studies by Ulrich Kahmann (Wilhelm Friedemann Bach: Der unterschätzte Sohn (Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2010)), who adopts a primarily biographical focus, and David Schulenberg (The Music of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2010)), who concentrates on the compositions themselves (see the review by John Butt in this issue of Eighteenth-Century Music). Friedemann's decision to eschew a church or court position after stints in Dresden and Halle (or his failure to secure one) and his attempt to earn a living as a travelling virtuoso are noteworthy, even if he was ultimately unsuccessful.

Friedemann's sonatas find no mention in James Hepokoski and Warren Darcy's Elements of Sonata Theory (New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), which features analysis of compositions by his brothers C. P. E. and Johann Christian Bach. His music is likewise absent from Robert O. Gjerdingen's Music in the Galant Style (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), although the sonatas and concertos would certainly lend themselves to consideration from the viewpoint of the galant schemata advanced by Gjerdingen. Apart from entries in standard music dictionaries such as Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart (second edition, ed. Ludwig Finscher (Kassel and Stuttgart: Bärenreiter and Metzler, 1994–2008), Personteil, 1, columns 1536–1547) and The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (second edition, ed. Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell (London: Macmillan, 2001), volume 2, 382–387), Friedemann is only now beginning to receive a level of scholarly scrutiny comparable to that which his brother Carl Philipp Emanuel has been accorded for several years (as witnessed by the work of Annette Richards, David Schulenberg and Steven Zohn, amongst others, and a complete critical edition – also supported by the Packard Humanities Institute). With a new catalogue of his compositions, a new complete edition under way and recordings of this calibre being issued in parallel (a second CD of keyboard music performed by Léon Berben is due out in 2012), the time seems ripe for a fundamental reappraisal of Wilhelm Friedemann Bach's music.