Bach, JS - Partitas Nos 1-6

Vladimir Ashkenazy

Decca 478 2163DX2 Buy now

Bach
Six Partitas, BWV825-30
Vladimir Ashkenazy pf
Decca 478 2163DX2

The Partitas bring out flashes of the youthful Ashkenazy all over again

Bach’s music seems to have lit a youthful spark under Vladimir Ashkenazy’s 70-something-year-old fingers, and in fact there’s nothing remotely arthritic about these joyful, invigorating and technically impressive Partita interpretations. Granted, you won’t find Perahia’s boundless arsenal of articulations or Schiff’s highly nuanced and calibrated polyphony, yet Ashkenazy’s innate musicality, impeccable taste and obvious love for these works permeate every bar. Infectious lightness and lilt prevail throughout the A minor Partita, while the B flat sports brisk, bouncy tempi and the E minor’s opening Toccata is movingly eloquent by virtue of Ashkenazy’s purposeful shaping of the arpeggiated figures.

The C minor and G major Partitas’ Allemandes best exemplify Ashkenazy’s decisively contoured yet never overly inflected left-hand lines. In the Sarabandes, Ashkenazy adapts relatively slow and rock-steady tempi that are kept alive by way of his discreetly varied voicings and carefully orchestrated dynamic levels, and just a soupçon of rubato at phrase ends or cadence points. That’s the mature master talking. But when Ashkenazy whacks those accented notes as he tears through the Gigues of the D major, G major and E minor Partitas, the unbridled teenage puppy who burst upon the international scene in 1955 comes back to life. Now that Ashkenazy’s got the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Partitas securely under his belt, shall we dare him to do the Goldberg Variations? Jed Distler