There is, certainly, an abundance of intimate, introspective material here - the sense that the music was set down in manuscript for the elevation of the individual playing it rather than for wider audience appeal, although one should guard' against arriving at judgements about eighteenth-century keyboard music by filtering it through the much expanded properties of the modern instrument.

Bacchetti is certainly persuaded by the more brilliant, florid writing, as indeed I am, and his pacing of these is always energetic and alive to the changes in character, if prone to a fractional pushing-on of tempo approaching cadences on occasion. The B flat Iarghetto Sonata is Mozartian in style and contrasts interestingly with the Scarlatti-like Allegro Sonata in the same key. There are touches of Beethoven here too (especially in the pair in C minor, appropriately enough), and both sonatas are very elegantly hewn by Bacchetti. For me, the A minor Allegro reveals the most persuasive playing here, the sonata itself enjoying some more extravagant twists and turns. Bacchetti certainly rises to the challenge in the more ebullient sonatas positioned later in the disc (especially a delightful Allegro, the second of the B flat offerings) and he is a model of restraint and good taste elsewhere. However, my personal preference would be for additional assertiveness and playfulness in the slower sonatas, especially in music so given to lengthy repeats they seem to cry out for as much inventiveness as the performer can muster.

I would also have liked a little more detail in the booklet notes about the sonatas themselves, accepting that much work ,is apparently still to be done with regard to their cataloguing and the availability of reliable scores. Peter Seivewright, I believe, is currently delving systematically into this important area and, indeed, endeavouring to record all the sonatas for Divine Art. In the meantime, it comes down to the likes of Bacchetti to cherry-pick discerningly and hence to assist a more fulsome awareness of this once highly celebrated Venetian composer.

Mark Tanner

 Thanks to this new recording of keyboard sonatas by Baldassarre Galuppi (1706-85), nimbly played by the young pianist Andrea Bacchetti, our attentiveness to this often neglected composer lifts slowly but surely. Indeed, this seems to be the prime motivation for Mario Marcarini, author of the booklet notes, who argues strenuously that Galuppi' s music has suffered disproportionately from an association with Venetian eighteenth-century frippery.

Enduring popularity is not always an inevitability, however potent the mix of talent and opportunity, and although there can be no doubt that there are wonderful moments to cherish in the eight sonatas presented here, there are also extended areas where the composer seems content to tread water. More than once, particularly in the first two sonatas, one waits in vain for something to 'happen' - Waiting for Godot perhaps, but lacking Beckett's comedic pathos or enterprising management of pared-down resources. It is sometimes hard to reconcile predictable, repetitive passages with a composer credited with co-inventing the comic-opera, although this might simply testify to the man's breadth of musical personality. After all, Galuppi composed a wealth of orchestral and religious music as well as instrumental works such as the 90 piano sonatas, and he was greatly appreciated in his own time.