Carole Cerasi is one of the most exciting harpsichordists of the younger generation. She burst on the scene in 1999 with her first CD, which won a Gramophone Award. Each of her subsequent recordings has won a French Diapason d’Or, and her 2002 recording of J. S. Bach and his predecessors was also runner-up for a Gramophone Award. She has given recitals all over the world, and appears regularly at many European festivals.

Her programme, based partly on her 2002 recording, contrasts two works by the young J. S. Bach with music by two of his most important older contemporaries, who influenced his early keyboard music. Georg Böhm (1661-1733), organist at Lüneburg and a family friend of the Bachs, is represented by the brilliant Capriccio in D major and an expressive suite. Johann Pachelbel (1653-1706) taught Johann Christoph Bach, Johann Sebastian’s elder brother and first teacher, and was one of the finest keyboard composers of his time; Carole Cerasi plays two of his imposing chaconnes.

The two Bach works are the magnificent Toccata in D major BWV912, one of his greatest early keyboard works, and the charming and amusing ‘Capriccio on the Departure of a Beloved Brother’ BWV992, traditionally thought to have been written as a farewell to Johann Jakob Bach, who entered the Swedish army in 1704.

‘A player of taste and superb technique’ The Gramophone.

‘Cerasi is a young keyboard player of great flair and musical imagination’The Guardian.
‘Sheer delight’ The Independent on Sunday.