Rating: - Exactly what you'd expect from Perhaia
In my opinion, nowhere in the entire output of Johann Sebastian Bach does this very, very great composer display his mastery over counterpoint and harmony better than in the mighty six keyboard partitas. Here is keyboard composition of such stature that only the great late keyboard sonatas of Beethoven are their peer. Working from a group of French dances popular in the era, J.S. developed a half-dozen of the world's most fully realized and fulfilling keyboard exhibitions, complete with virtuosity, magnificent voicing for both hands, and a strain of compositional expertise not matched by another composer since Beethoven.
Murray Perahia returns to Bach's creations after a three-year hiatus due to ill health owing to inflammation in the right hand. His return to recording, and especially to the work of Bach -- where he previously set down excellent versions of the English suites, Goldberg variations and keyboard concertos -- has excited critics on both sides of the Atlantic and probably in the rest of the world's continents. And, once you hear this recording, you will know why such anticipation exists worldwide.
Perahia is, again, a marvel at prestidigitation, voicing, harmony, counterpoint, ornamentation and every other musical affectation you want to name that fits the scores. He plays the left-hand figures, so important in this body of work as a counterbalance to the right-hand melody, equisitiely and, when called for, forcefully. Compared to the often harsh and machinelike manner of music school graduates influenced by a half-century of Glenn Gould worship, Perahia shows the listener there is more to Bach than mere speed and precision. There are, among other assets on display here, vestiges of Bach's own humanity, elegance befitting French dance music, and, perhaps most important, technique second to none mated with an intelligence that makes us think what these may have sounded like had Richter recorded them.
I've spent much of the past decade purchasing, borrowing, checking out from the library and listening to Bach's six partitas. They speak to me anew each time I hear them, especially in advocacy as alternately strong, gentle, brightly sprung and humanistic as put forward here by Perahia. A brief rundown of each sonata reveals:
-- That wonderful Bach counterpoint, so immediately recognizable in the opening phrase of Partita 2's Sinfonia, bowls you over with easygoing persuasion under Perahia. Compared to my reference recording by the great lady of Bach -- Roselyn Tureck, in her concert recording from St. Petersburg in 1995 -- he is equally as authoritative without any of Tureck's idiosyncracies.
-- The flights of fancy that open Partita 3's Fantasia with neither stress nor grief take you to another world, one without the problems of high fuel prices or a presidential election without a candidate good enough to manage outrageous times. You bounce along on his rhythm and are engulfed by the music. Compared to my all-time favorite in this music, by Swede Kristian Svanberg from an out of print Swedish Society CD, Perahia is just as fine and even more intellectual.
-- That fantastic opening Overture in Partita 4, which was the linchpin of Gould's old CBS/Columbia/Sony set, begins in equal metrics and with similar rubato and perhaps more ornaments. So many performers that record the fourth partita take Gould's recording as a reference and Perahia may have too. Still, for the parallel to Gould in the opening, Perahia becomes his own man in the following Allemande and shows you he has plenty to say about this, playing repeats each time as if the music is entirely new, not just a rehash of something we just heard. In this measure, Perahia is the epitome of masterly Bach pianism.
Sony captures these renditions in three-dimensional sound and space that give you an idea of the Berlin auditorium where they were taped in 2007. There are two minor blemishes to this production -- a scant two pages of notes written by Julian Haylock that talk about the music (there are four pages of photos of the pianist) and no track listings on the outside of the back page of the booklet, making reference inconvenient and, in the car, impossible. Otherwise, here is a Bach performance that stands with any ever recorded and begs the question about how soon we will see the other three partitas come from this source and be able to hear Murray do the best of them, the titanic Partita 6. It is so wonderful to have this to look forward to!
Rating: - The exquisite return of Murray Perahia
Murray Perahia's new compact disc, featuring Bach's Partitas for Keyboard Nos. 2, 3 and 4, marks the exquisite return to recording of one of the finest pianists currently before the public. After several years battling a recurrence of a debilitating hand condition that severely hampered Perahia in practicing his art, the pianist's latest Bach cd firmly answers any & all questions concerning whether or not he would ever make beautiful music again; this disc of keyboard partitas composed by JSB re-establishes Murray Perahia as one of the finest interpreters of this repertoire in this, or perhaps any other, era.
Perahia's performances here are sophisticted and articulate, very much like the artist himself. He elicits a mesmerizing tone from the piano on this cd, with an immaculate Sony Classical sound that makes disc a clear must have for devotees of Bach's solo keyboard music. I had the good fortune to hear Perahia perform Partita #4 in D-major, BWV 828, at his return to Carnegie Hall this past November. He was spellbinding that evening in recital, and he is thuroughly spellbinding on this new cd. One could not ask for a more welcome return to recording than the one Murray Perahia provides on his new Sony Classical release. We can only hope that an even more recent recurrence of past hand problems ( concerts with the ASMF scheduled for the US in March & April had to be cancelled on the advice of Perahia's doctors,) will not further prevent this gifted performer from recording still more of the glorious keyboard works of Johann Sebastian Bach! Most highly recommended to one & all!
- Exactly what you'd expect from Perhaia