• Some musicians go further than others in shaping their own recitals or albums; studying autograph manuscripts; writing programme notes; restlessly questioning the way a familiar work is played. As a solo harpsichordist, aiming to bring the instrument back into the mainstream, the Iranian-American Mahan Esfahani has commissioned new works and revisited old in myriad ways. On his latest album, Bach: Italian Concerto & French Overture (Hyperion), he examines the task of Bach’s engravers and copyists, possible errors that arise, and how the performer should interpret them. The double question of what is authentic and what is musical is at the heart of Esfahani’s always lively and inexhaustible interrogations.
