Bach's English Suites
Bach's English Suites
The Gramophone Choice
Six English Suites, BWV806-11
Sony Classical 88697 31050-2 (128’ · DDD) Buy from Amazon
Murray Perahia’s English Suites (his first Bach recordings) originally appeared as full-price individual releases, beginning with Nos 1, 3 and 6 in 1997, followed by Nos 2, 4 and 5 in 1998. Now programmed in numerical order, the performances have more than worn well. No matter how full-bodied and luminous his sonority, Perahia is a line player first and foremost, achieving clear, colourfully diversified textures mainly through finger power and hand balance. Perahia’s sarabandes are firmly etched and the courantes propulsive. Ornaments are adventurous and he brings rhythmic drive to the quicker movements. The superb sound adds further value to an attractively priced reissue that collectors seeking the English Suites on the piano ought to seriously consider.
Additional Recommendations
Six English Suites, BWV806-11
Glenn Gould pf
Sony Classical Glenn Gould Edition 88497 71300-2 or 88697 14840-2 (112‘ · ADD). Recorded 1971-73. Buy from Amazon
There has been no more original genius of the keyboard than Glenn Gould, but this has drawbacks as well as thrilling advantages. He can sacrifice depth of feeling for a relentless and quixotic sense of adventure. Yet love it or deride it, every bar of these lovingly remastered discs tingles with joie de vivre and an unequalled force and vitality. Try the opening of the First Suite. Is such freedom glorious or maddening, or is the way the odd note is nonchalantly flicked in the following sustained argument a naughty alternative to Bach’s intention? The pizzicato bass in the second Double from the same Suite is perhaps another instance of an idiosyncrasy bordering on whimsy, an enlivenment or rejuvenation that at least remains open to question. But listen to him in virtually any of the sarabandes and you’ll find a tranquillity and equilibrium that can silence such criticism. Even at his most piquant and outrageous his playing remains, mysteriously, all of a piece. The fiercely chromatic, labyrinthine argument concluding the Fifth Suite is thrown off with a unique brio, one of those moments when you realise how he can lift Bach out of all possible time-warps and make him one of music’s truest modernists.
Bach English Suites – No 2 in A minor; No 3 in G minor. Italian Concerto, BWV971. Toccata in C minor, BWV911. Capriccio, BWV992 Gulda Prelude and Fugue
Friedrich Gulda pf
DG mono 477 8020GH (72’ · ADD) Recorded 1955-69. Buy from Amazon
Lovingly compiled from a mix of live and studio recordings by his son Paul, all these performances tell us that Gulda’s legendary eccentricity was countered by an acutely economic and disciplined style and uncompromising musical integrity. For Gulda, Bach was ‘a pillar of moral support’ but for Paul Gulda, his father’s life was full of foibles and oddities rather than airs and graces, and his lifelong attempt to reconcile the Apollonian and Dionysian elements in music were shown in his special reverence for Mozart and Beethoven. But here, his Bach is of a crystalline clarity combined with an innate musicality that erases all possible dryness or pedantry. The Italian Concerto’s opening Allegro is both sturdy and magnificently assured, the central Andante magically fine-spun while the final Presto is a marvel of exuberant virtuosity. Gulda’s way with the English Suites just possibly tells us the source of Martha Argerich’s dazzling Bach (Gulda was a guiding force and mentor to her) and throughout all these performances you are made gloriously aware of Bach as a contemporary, a composer for all time. The Aria di postiglione is springy and piquant while for his final offering, his own Prelude and Fugue, Gulda whisks us to New York’s Birdland, the jazz club where, after playing at Carnegie Hall, he would jam away with his esteemed colleagues into the small hours.
Excellently recorded and lavishly illustrated, this special disc is part of ‘an ocean of music’ (Argerich) left by a very special pianist.
Toccata in C minor, BWV911. Partita No 2 in C minor, BWV826. English Suite No 2 in A minor, BWV807
DG The Originals 463 604-2GOR (50' · ADD) Recorded 1979. Buy from Amazon
This recital, first issued in 1980, has an extraordinary authority and panache. Argerich’s attack in the C minor Toccata could hardly be bolder or more incisive, a classic instance of virtuosity all the more clear and potent for being so firmly but never rigidly controlled. Here, as elsewhere, her discipline is no less remarkable than her unflagging brio and relish of Bach’s glory. Again, in the Second Partita, her playing is quite without those excesses or mannerisms that too often pass for authenticity, and in the Andante immediately following the Sinfonia she’s expressive yet clear and precise, her following Allegro a marvel of high-speed yet always musical bravura. True, some may question her way with the Courante from the Second English Suite, finding it hard-driven, even overbearing, yet her eloquence in the following sublime Sarabande creates its own hypnotic authority. The dynamic range of these towering, intensely musical performances has been excellently captured by DG.
