While Mahan Esfahani has done well by the more familiar harpsichord repertoire of Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations, Jean-Philippe Rameau's Pièces de clavecin, and the Württemberg Sonatas of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, he frequently shows an abiding interest in the virginal music of 17th century England. Not only has he included selections from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book in his harpsichord recitals, he contributed to a series of the complete works of John Bull on Musica Omnia, and included 14 works of William ...
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While Mahan Esfahani has done well by the more familiar harpsichord repertoire of Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations, Jean-Philippe Rameau's Pièces de clavecin, and the Württemberg Sonatas of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, he frequently shows an abiding interest in the virginal music of 17th century England. Not only has he included selections from the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book in his harpsichord recitals, he contributed to a series of the complete works of John Bull on Musica Omnia, and included 14 works of William Byrd on his live recital recorded at Wigmore Hall. The Passinge Mesures, a 2018 release on Hyperion, continues Esfahani's brilliant explorations of Elizabethan and Jacobean keyboard music, and here he includes works by Bull and Byrd, as well as selections by Orlando Gibbons, Thomas Tomkins, William Inglot, Richard Farnaby, and his brother, the prolific Giles Farnaby, as well as three anonymous pieces. While this music belongs to the domain of Renaissance specialists, and may seem...
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