CASAL,ALEJANDRO - Casal/Krieger:Complete Harpsichord (Sealed) (2CD)

Johann Krieger (1652-1735) won the esteem of Handel, no less, for the skill of his counterpoint and the inventive power of his organ music. For the theorist Mattheson, Krieger was likewise the pre-eminent exponent of complex counterpoint in his generation. Yet music-lovers have hitherto been able to sample Krieger’s work only in excerpted compilations. The present album occupies a unique place in the catalogue as by far the most extensive survey of Krieger on disc, containing his two published collections of keyboard music. CD1 is filled with the six harpsichord suites which were published in 1697 in Krieger’s home town of N?rnberg, though by then the composer himself was employed as an organist in the Saxon town of Zittau: a post he filled for 54 years until his death. The Suites are themselves prefaced by an elaborate fantasia, and they contain the standard sequence of dance numbers – allemandes, courantes, sarabandes and gigues.