Ladies don’t usually phone me. Perhaps like Mozart’s heroines (Shakespeare’s too) they’re smarter than men. Thus the dulcet tones of Emma Roach, deputy editor of the day, inviting me to join Gramophone’s team were mind-blowing. But I was smart enough to accept her offer. In fact it wasn’t the first from this publisher. That – the beginning of it all for me – came from Classics, its editor Rob Cowan his deputy Andrew Achenbach. My gratitude and affection toward them remain very strong though the magazine is long dead. 

Now the prestigious portal beckoned. Scary. Yet it had to be carpe diem. And from my first review too – of The Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1 played by Evgeni Koroliov – in June 2000. It began 'How do you like your Bach?' Not such a silly question because preferences dictate our choices. They boil down to defining the reality of reviews: opinions, based on integrity. It’s what readers pay for, an exacting requirement that demands the discipline of learning, re-thinking, ditching obsolete baggage and pushing out goal posts. Have I changed in 13 years? I hope so. After all, I’m 13 years older.  

Bach Das wohltemperierte Klavier - Book 1, BWV846-869

Evgeni Koroliov pf

Tacet TACET93 (129' • DDD) (Buy from Amazon)

Selected comparison: Fischer (EMI) CHS5 67214-2 

How do you like your Bach? It really is down to a question of taste because no composer is more impervious to the vagaries of interpretation than Bach. Play him as you will and he remains obstinately in character. Play his keyboard music on a piano and the same thing happens, though proponents of the harpsichord may disagree. Yet a short while ago, musicologist Eva Badura-Skoda threw a spanner in the works by arguing strongly that Bach, in his Leipzig years, had extensively used fortepianos in an effort to help Silbermann perfect these instruments. A pianoforte was the next step, after all. 

Edwin Fischer used it in the first-ever recording of the 48. But his approach and emendations have their detractors. Koroliov's only audible emendation is an extra note in the bass at bar 28 of the C minor Prelude. Otherwise he sticks to the text and his decorations at the endings of a couple of pieces are well within current knowledge of authentic practice. What intrigues and impresses is that unlike most pianists, Koroliov largely ignores the sustaining pedal. He often prefers to let fingers, rather than feet, dictate colour; and his fingers are capable of a variety of touch. They can also project the notes with pinpoint velocity which, when wrongly applied, turns the G major Fugue into a mechanical exercise. At Koroliov's speed, the swinging nature of 6/8 time is transformed into a hasty 3/4; and a wittily gracious piece becomes graceless. This is a serious miscalculation, but it is the only one. 

The instrument is closely miked. It can lead to moments of discomfort, for instance in the A minor Fugue which is starkly presented. But Koroliov isn't always uncompromising, and the B flat minor Prelude offers an example of his sensitivity to the changes within a single work, from rigorous beginnings to a resigned ending. The composer's intention, to prepare the listener for the sepulchral quality of the companion Fugue, is respected. Koroliov reserves his best for the last pair for which, unusually, Bach added markings, Andante and Largo respectively. Unusually, too, the Prelude is in binary form, though Koroliov only repeats the first half. But his performance of the Fugue marries tension to an inexorable flow that portrays the structure as an imposing edifice. Purists may quibble at the very slow tempo but this is a tour de force of penetrating interpretation.

Nalen Anthoni (Gramophone, June 2000)