The Keyboard Music of Bach

Hi, anhlehaha.

Wrong thread, I'm afraid. Perhaps you should try to delete this and start a new thread on the 5 browns, which have nothing to do with the keyboard music of JSBach.

Welcome

 

Hmm, perhaps the keyboard music of JSBach has influenced the 5 browns... In that case it may be appropriate to discuss the 5 browns in this thread. Or maybe the 5 browns have influenced JSBach by a mysterious space-time loophole. You know time-travel, general theory of relativity, etc.

 

A new recording by Masaaki Suzuki of the French Overture, Italian Concerto and a transcription of one of the violin sonatas. Has anyone heard it?

 

Got it five weeks ago, haven't heard it yet, will try to listen to it soon.

Regards,

 

Suzuki: Clavierübung II + Sonata d-minor

Sn66, having listened to the Suzuki CD yesterday evening once, this isn´t but a first impression.

I wouldn´t call his interpretation unqualified dry, but more cerebral and a bit contrieved. In the Italian Concerto his agogics are exaggerated in the first movement, and in the second movement he adds excesses of unnecessary embellishment (even in the accompaniment), more than even Koopman might have dreamt of. The third movement (surprising enough) is just plain presto without errands on the way.

In the French ouverture his occupation with "correctness" impede the natural flow of the rhytm, when he plays double-dotting and "notes inegales". He doesn´t seem to feel by heart, how this must be done. But there is a strong energy and forward momentum in his playing elsewhere in this piece, not the least in the fast part of the first movement. And he takes ALL repetitions, even in the da capos of the dance movements (e.g. Passepied I with all repetitions, Passepied II with all repetitions (so far so good), but then Passepied I da capo with all repetitions.

In the first movement of the Sonata I think he "understates" the melisms of the upper voice, just playing them like ripples on the surface. This makes the piece rather uneventful. The Fugue on the other hand is played with much energy and clear part writing.

Generally his interpretation is predominantly intellectual and the bad thing is that it may seem a bit cold. The good thing is, that many things are well thought out, like the articulation and the registration. He is interesting then, but this is not a version to live with, if you see what I mean.

His harpsichord is the usual Ruckers copy, rather dry sounding. He is probably right in assuming, that this is more similar to the harpsichords Bach had at hand, than the more resonant and full-sounding late French instruments. Like all other harpsichordists of the Leonhardt-school (he was pupil of Koopman who was pupil of Leonhardt), he is an uncritical victim of the 8´, 8´, 4´ - maxim.

I couldn´t resist the temptation to listen to Gilberts Clavierübung II immediately afterwards. It is slower, calmer, smoother, more beautiful, almost laid back in comparation, but also with a much more natural feeling for this music.

Regards,

 

Dear pe-zulu,

Thanks for your reply. I've been looking for a good recording of the Clavierubung 2 and was contemplating getting Suzuki's recording on the strength of his excellent partitas. I may have to think again.

If anyone can recommend a good available version, I would be most obliged.

 

There is a lot of piano-recordings of the French Ouverture, but only a few available harpsichord recordings at the moment. The best, I can find now, is this :

http://www.jpc.de/jpcng/classic/detail/-/hnum/5006586/rk/classic/rsk/hitlist

and this:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/...092426?v=glance&n=229816&s=classical&v=glance

Regards,

 

Will check the recordings out. Thanks very much.

 

Sn66,
There is another Clavierübung II with the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue with K Weiss here. I have not heard it:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000F1HR96/026-0591705-6508416?v=glance&n=229816

 

Yes, the Kenneth Weiss recording is available here. I enjoyed his partitas very much, very expressive and poetic, played on a copy of a Sibermann harpsichord. Even more so, his recording of Rameau transcriptions of operas (some transcriptions were done by Weiss himself), in which he utilises two wonderful instruments, the same 1761 Hemsch he uses in his Clavierubung II and a magnificent-sounding Goujon Swanen. Again, he is expressive and poetic, but also virtuosic and energetic, resulting in an exhilarating recording.

BTW, I believe his new recording was possibly taken from a live performance. Again, something to check out when I have the time. I think he also included a sonata together with his Italian Concerto, Chromatic Fantasy and French Overture.

Regards.

 

Dear SN:

Can you tell me a little more on Weiss's instrument? I did not notice it was a Silbermann copy and I took it to be a Mietke copy.

 

Weiss partitas

Dear RdS

Sn66 is right. The cover reads :
The harpsichord on this recording is from the Anthony Sidey workshop, based on a mid-18th-century German instrument from the Gottfried Silbermann workshop. It was built in Paris in 1995 by Anthony Sidey and Frederic Bal and was tuned for the present recording by Anthony Sidey.

Regards,

 

While on harpsichord recordings, any opinions on Dantone's Well Tempered Clavier recordings?

 

It's brilliant, colourful, exuberant but not very deep I think.

 

Hmm... and Landowska?

 

Somewhat heavy, with every possibility of rhetorics stressed. Not too much, but sufficient to distress someone who prefers a cantabile view of Bach.

 

Heavy and rhetorical - sounds more like Landowska than Dantone I think.

 

Yes - this is the problem with words: all is relative. I did not find it heavy in the sense that every beat was stressed; only that the harmonic and rhythmic aspect of the music is given precedence over the melodic aspect.

Now as you know, I very much like to stress the melodic aspect of every voice, and I see a fugue as a flow towards its conclusion. It is this that I do not find in Dantone.

 

Asperen's French Suites chez Aeolus:

Brilliant. The harpsichord (the Vater) is very sweet and perhaps a little too soft (at least that was what I thought at the beginning). But the three last suites are so wonderfully played that it is impossible not to like this rendering.

20 years ago I admired Asperen because of his honesty and, of course, his incredible technique. But I found his playing a little bipolar: fast or sad.

This has undoubtedly changed. He has matured into a marvelous musician. His approach is still very much indebted to the rhythmic tension approach of Leonhardt, but it is freer, and he indulges in a kind of tenderness never to be found in the austere Leonhardt.

As a result, this record really is warm heartening. He rejects the ornamentation of Heinrich Nikolaus Gerber - a pupil of Bach - as pedantic, and I could not agree more, and achieves a unity of meaning that I have never heard in the French Suites (apart from Walcha, but that is quite another world).

 

van Asperen's four CD's of Clavier Books I and II are currently available for £10.50 plus pp, a real bargain.

Dantone seems more at home with Book II than Book I. It's a wonderfully-recorded version of a modern instrument, perhaps that single CD worth hearing for this purpose alone.