Magdalena Hoffmann finds freedom in the Baroque on her new album – Fantasia

Magdalena Hoffmann’s debut Deutsche Grammophon album, Nightscapes (“a delightful recital” – The Whole Note), earned the artist a 2022 Opus Klassik Young Talent of the Year award for her performances of works from the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. For her second DG recording, Fantasia, the harpist has travelled further back in time to focus on the music of the Baroque period. Here she showcases her instrument in a selection of fantasias and preludes originally written for keyboard or lute by Johann Sebastian Bach, his sons Wilhelm Friedemann and Carl Philipp Emanuel, and his contemporaries Handel and Weiss. Fantasia is released digitally and on CD on 6 September 2024.

By the 18th century, the term “fantasia”, in use since the Renaissance, indicated a piece of instrumental music characterised by a combination of stylistic invention and structural discipline. As Magdalena Hoffmann points out, “Improvisatory freedom and formal rigour come together to create a living, breathing entity – these contrasts make for fertile ground when it comes to musical creation.” Her chosen composers may not have been writing for the harp, but whether labelled fantasias, preludes, overtures, airs or allegros, their works in this genre are perfectly suited to the instrument. “The harp has what you might almost call a home advantage,” she says, “thanks to its natural potential for the kind of free, ornamental arpeggiation so typical of Baroque preludes and fantasias.”

Among the music on Fantasia originally designed for keyboard instruments is that by JS Bach. There are two early works – the Fantasia in G minor, BWV 917, still very much based on strict contrapuntal writing, and the Prelude (Fantasia) in C minor, BWV 921, which has echoes of Alessandro Scarlatti. The album ends with the lilting elegance of the Sinfonia (Fantasia), BWV 797.

Hoffmann has chosen three works by Bach’s eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann, including the unpredictable Fantasia in A minor. Her album opens with the Fantasia in E flat major by his more famous brother, Carl Philipp Emanuel, a work full of contrasts. She also performs the latter composer’s Fantasia in D major and his late masterpiece in F sharp minor, in which improvisatory invention is perfectly balanced with a coherent underlying structure.

Handel is represented here by a stylistically varied selection of short works for harpsichord probably written for teaching purposes. The final composer featured on Fantasia, meanwhile, was both a contemporary and a friend of JS Bach. Silvius Leopold Weiss, a virtuoso lutenist, left a huge body of works for his instrument, including the two delightful C minor works performed on this recording.

Magdalena Hoffmann channels the Baroque spirit of improvisation on Fantasia, using the resonance and versatility of the harp to add new dynamic and spatial dimensions to this richly imaginative repertoire. “The harp offers the possibility of great inner tension and a kind of spiritual dynamic which has a liberating effect,” she notes. “And that means each fantasia is like a musical snapshot that sounds different every time you play it – its energy is infinite, and it can never be definitively captured.”