The trouble with the ‘Great Composer’ and ‘Major Work’ concepts is that a lot of very fine music goes unpublished, unperformed and unheard. While I would be the first to agree that the ‘popular’ pieces are popular for good reasons, some of the most enjoyable Ripieno rehearsals and concerts have happened when we’ve had a dig around the apparent fringes of the repertoire – our Bach Cantata Calendar is an obvious recent example. There we were dealing with an indisputably great composer but also with an area of his output that remains both little performed or fully understood, if relatively often recorded. Continue reading