"Not even the offer a prize for the "best review" of the month will save this "interpretation". Hinterhuber rattles this music off like so much non-descript 18th century meaningless palaver. Several facts doom this recording from the outset:

1) the wrong choice of instrument and
2) an utter lack of insight into the music of this, certainly one of the most ingenious composers of the entire 18th century.

The sterility of Hinterhuber's performance is highlighted by the use of the modern piano which for this repertoire is simply without character, nuance or charm. The modern piano is, in a word: inadequate. Modern pianistic/urtext thinking and playing is the death of this music, being as it is loaded with affect, capriciousness, fantasy and wit. None of this is in evidence in this recording.

Of course an instrument alone is not guarantee of an intelligent, sensitive or discerning interpretation. Those who wish to assay this highly complex, highly sophisticated repertoire would be best advised to study and assimilate the composer's Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments. Unfortunately this is a source which is bandied about in name-dropping fashion, but hardly ever REALLY studied and taken seriously. Until players learn and understand what an affect truly IS (this was and remains the be-all and end-all of CPE Bach's music), not to mention how to portray the same in performance, this music will remain inaccessible its depth, charm and intelligence mere legend and never a reality."

Rating: 23/06/2009