Fantasia und Fuge

Léon Berben plays Fantasies & Fugues by Johann Sebastian Bach, showing the wide range of the composer‘s ingenious keyboard compositions. The album includes rarely performed works of Bach‘s early years as well as masterpieces like the »Chromatic Fantasy & Fugue«. „This fantasy is one of a kind and has never been matched“, Bach biographer Johann Nicolaus Forkel wrote in 1802 on BWV903. The rejoice in virtuoso, improvised playing, with neither composer nor player subjecting themselves to any rules, made the fantasy a popular genre for keyboard players in the 18th century. Under the influence of the intentions of the past Renaissance period, the „free fantasy“ developed and found its musical peak in J.S. Bach’s works. Léon Berben performs on a harpsichord by Keith Hill (after Christian Zell, Hamburg 1728)