The keyboard sonatas of Johann Christian Bach were published, like most sonatas of the time, as ''for the Harpsichord or Piano-Forte''—publishers naturally wanted owners of either instrument to buy them—but Bach by himself was known for ''his expressive and masterly performance on the piano forte'' (Burney's words), and the character of the music is in general better caught on the modern instrument. Virginia Black however makes a pretty good case on this record for the older one. There are a few movements that sound rather buzzy and busy on the harpsichord, where the fortepiano would have lent them a gentler tone, but she has chosen her music well, favouring the brilliant sonatas, with lots of scale and arpeggio figuration, in preference to the more 'singing' ones.
The opening item, Op. 17 No. 3, is a case in point, with lively and athletic figuration in both its movements, the second of which in particular is neatly punctuated, as it were, to give the music shape. The same goes for No. 2 of this set, at least its outer movements (the galloping finale comes off in splendid fashion), though the Andante is inevitably less expressive than it could be on a fortepiano. The other sonata from the Op. 17 set starts in a more cantabile vein but soon runs into brilliant semiquaver passagework, all very deftly written (Burney, with a sexism impermissible today, wrote that Bach's piano compositions were ''such as ladies can execute with little trouble''). Black plays this music, some of it almost Scarlatti-like, with great spirit, and even manages an echo effect in a repeated passage the presence of dynamic marks in half the Op. 17 sonatas implies that they were meant for the fortepiano, but she often succeeds in representing these on her instrument.
The Op. 17 sonatas were written in the late 1770s, the Op. 5 set appeared in 1766, and some of the sonatas may be earlier. No. 5 is another brilliant piece with a slow movement that seems a little cool on the harpsichord. But finest of all is Op. 5 No. 6, a C minor work quite unlike any of the others with its imposing grave first movement—the left hand moving in arpeggio patterns under a sustained right hand—followed by a fullscale fugue, Black plays all this music with due nobility and some subtle timing, and the fugue is strong and clear. The attractive gavotte that ends the sonata is neatly phrased but a little more flexibility would not have been amiss. This fine sonata alone makes the disc worthwhile. The recording is close and vivid.'