Hung Duong_

Music of the week with Tom: Join me in the journey through David Russell's highly-elaborated, crystal-clear, and virtuosic interpretations of Baroque music. Opening with the initially-quasi-improvisational and later-fugal Toccata from the Sixth Keyboard Partita BWV 830 by Johann Sebastian Bach; this work readily demonstrate the dichotomy of Bach as an improvisor and a planner. The following Sinfonias BWV 788, 797, 791 and 792 have a two-fold purpose: to show how Bach's music fits well with the guitar (or vice-versa), and to show Bach's ability to compose universal contrapuntal music, although these pieces were orginally designed for students. Moving on to the literal monumental Keyboard Suite in G minor HWV 432 (now played in D minor) with its full set of movements: Overture, Andante, Allegro, Sarabande, Gigue, and finally Passacaglia which remains one of the people's favorites. The album continues with four small pieces from the Vingt-sixième Ordre (the Twenty-sixth Order) by one of the lesser known French composer François Couperin. He is known for his stylistic simplicity, while at the same time technically ornamented. Finally, we conclude with a Sonata for Lute in D major (No. 13, or 18, or 14, depending on which numbering system you use) by a composer that is, again, not very well known even within the classical guitar circle: Sylvius Leopold Weiss.