Music has been of great support to me in these rather difficult times. I used to listen a lot to news programmes and BBC’s Radio 4 but it started to become a little obsessive after a while – too much talk about the blasted pandemic! Changing over to a station that broadcasts mainly music can make a real difference to one’s psyche. For me BBC’s Radio 3 gives me solace and strength. No longer the snooty ‘thud’ programme of former days it broadcasts music of all sorts from Kapsperger to Klezmer, from Gamelan to Gounod and from Bach to Björk.

I have Radio 3 on most mornings and the sounds it broadcasts provide a pleasant background to several household activities. However, one morning I was particularly struck by a harpsichord concerto which I mistakenly attributed to J. S. Bach’s son Carl Philip Emmanuel.  Although it turned out to be by someone else I was not far wrong.

Johann Gottfried Müthel (1728-1788) was born in Molln in the Duchy of Lauenberg. His father was an organist and friend of Telemann who, in turn, was chummy with Johann Sebastian Bach. In 1750 Muthel became Johann Sebastian’s last student in Leipzig (Bach was to die the same year) and was present at the great composer’s death bed.

Müthel subsequently travelled a lot and met, among other composers, Bach’s son Carl Philip Emmanuel at Frederick the Great’s court at Potsdam. He then moved to Riga in present day Latvia and was organist at St Peter’s church there. Despite the fact that Riga was a little off the musical map (although Wagner’s tenure at the opera put it back in the nineteenth century) it provided a pleasant environment for Müthel.

Müthel is important for being one of the first to recognize the newly-invented piano (or fortepiano as the early instrument is called) in his compositions and for being an exponent of that turbulent proto-romantic period known as Sturm und Drang’, (Storm and emotional drive) which also affected Haydn’s middle-period symphonies.

A portrait of Müthel has come down to us. It shows a long-haired individual with a placidly intense appearance. In an age of powdered periwigs and stereotyped expressions the likeness is almost romantic in appearance. I can readily imagine him as the writer of storm and stress music.

Most of Muthel’s music has remained in manuscript but there are some fine recordings now being issued, especially of the keyboard concerti.

Here’s one of them for harpsichord and two bassoons (most prominent in the second movement). See what you think.