CPE Bach – Cello concertos Wq170, Wq171, Wq172

These performances are clean-lined and stylish … Wallfisch’s cello, furthermore, has a pleasingly light and singing tone, to which is added a depth and dynamic range that may well be beyond most period instruments, and which is used to good expressive effect in those slow movements or when gutsily punching out the curious passage in the B flat’s first movement in which a rustic gloss is laid over the music’s courtly progress.

Gramophone December 2009

This delightful disc vividly reveals the mercurial character of CPE Bach … The demands on the cello are often highly virtuosic, with rapid-fire figuration in the last movement of Wq170, a rollicking finale to Wq172, all pulled off with disarming ease. Raphael Wallfisch is particularly alluring in the opening movement of Wq171, characterised by calm persuasive rhetoric rather than forceful passion though, as in all three works, there are constant surprises…. The Scottish Ensemble contributes just 12 strings and harpsichord, creating clear, transparent textures matching the refined, focused tone of the cello, even in its lowest register. The intimacy of this chamber scale is enhanced by the recording, the cello audibly forward of the light orchestral forces. Highly recommended.

George Pratt, BBC Music Magazine April 2010