At the opening of each movement of the Italian Concerto (in the bass of II) a four-note (extended in III) scale follows a leap; st's surprising how even the simplest of musical devices can contribute to a sense of unity in a work, in this case the most often recorded of Bach's solo-keyboard pieces. So far Woolley's (EMI) has proved the best version, Gilbert's is now to be set alongside it. Gilbert's instrument (''clavecins allemands Bernhard von Tucher d'apres Grabner et Vater'') has the clearer sound, which is helpful in the flanking movements, but it (or the recording) is somewhat bass-heavy, so that busy bass-lines in I and III sometimes come close to swamping the rest, and the effective, buffstopped bass in II is that little bit too prominent That said, it is a joyous, and in the central movement eloquent, performance in which his Presto sounds less hurried and torrential than Woolley's.
Gilbert is a thoughtful and 'aristocratic' performer but not an adventurous one (except in undertaking large projects), so in the French Overture it comes as no surprise to find him ascetically sparing when it comes to varying repeats other than by limited changes in ornamentation If you too feel that such liberties are out of place this is the recording for you. Like Haugsand (Simax/Conifer) he eschews the second repeat in the Ouverture but is alone in playing all repeats in the reprises in the paired dance movements—which he takes at much the same speeds as do the others, but with somewhat less light footwork. The Sarabande disappointingly lacks breadth and a measure of the emotional depth Woolley and Haugsand find in it. Surprisingly, for a specialist in the work's eponymous style, Gilbert finds almost no occasion for applying inegales, an enlivening feature of Woolley's and (even more) Haugsand's readings. His is a fine performance in the tradition of 'telling it like it is', with minimal personal intervention, markedly different from the other two and an alternative view of the work that should find a place next to them on the shelf.
The four Duets BWV802-5 are common to Gilbert's and Woolley's programmes: in the last three Gilbert's tempos and approach foster the less 'exercise-like' results. Had the former included also the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, BWV903, as the latter does, their programmes would have been identical—and Gilbert's disc would have made fuller use of the available playing time. Nevertheless, if the width is shorter than it might be, the quality isn't.'