Café Zimmermann - The Imaginary Music Book of J.S. Bach - Gramophone

I’ve followed Café Zimmermann with great interest down the years, and this latest addition to their catalogue is no less intriguing than the others. In this stripped-down guise they offer an unapologetically chamber recital, and sound as clear and precise as I can remember. 

There’s usually a particular moment in Café Zimmermann’s recitals that has me sitting up and listening particularly intently. Here it’s the final selection, when the three sustaining instruments join together to ‘sing’ the chorale Vor deinen Thron, accompanied by Céline Frisch in the setting that Bach supposedly composed just before his death. This hint of Frescobaldi (via Froberger) extends the timeline in the opposite direction from Bach’s son and Mozart’s arrangement: it’s elegant and subtle, like so much else here.