After his first recording for naïve of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, the Chinese pianist Tianqi Du gets back to the composer closest to his heart, of whom he this time plays four Concertos, with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, conducted by Jonathan Bloxham.

The four works chosen here by Tianqi Du are among the most famous and remarkable of the series of Bach’s keyboard Concertos.

Captivated by the genius of Bach, the pianist, who regards the sessions that led to this album as a transformative experience, recalls the overwhelming impression these works had on his formative years when, still a teenager, he first encountered them.

Now a mature artist, he captures their essence, as much in the vigorous perpetual motion of the allegros as the more passionate and tender expression of the middle movements.

These works range from the refined and elegant to the positively rambunctious, and they bear the mark of the Italian style that Johann Sebastian Bach had learned in his early years, almost in secret, while he was under the tutelage of his brother, Johann Christoph.

As Tianqi Du himself suggests, these works show the more approachable, more humane and less intimidating side of Bach’s imposing genius. They were written specifically for public performances in the Café Zimmerman, Saint Catherine Street, in Leipzig.

The Cantor would happily sit at the keyboard, as would some of his numerous children, students, or even family and friends. The atmosphere was relaxed, joyful, and for these moments of simple pleasure, Bach would create within the decade of 1730 an impressive quantity of new works (often lost), as well as adaptations of older music originally written for violin, oboe or even oboe d’amore.