Home listening - August Stradal, the Kitgut Quartet and Kenneth Hamilton

The Guardian 0

Stradal’s Buxtehude arrangements, the origins of the string quartet, and a personal take on Dowland prove revelatory

• For me, and it seems for many others (more than 7m hits on Spotify and counting), a standout classical music track of recent times is Víkingur Ólafsson’s hypnotic rendering of an organ trio sonata movement by Bach in the vividly pianistic transcription by August Stradal (1860-1930). Now a complete disc of first recordings of Stradal piano transcriptions has appeared, of works by Bach’s contemporary Dietrich Buxtehude, whom Bach famously walked many miles to hear.