Bach Partitas Nos 1 and 2; English Suites Nos 2 and 3

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Johann Sebastian Bach

Label: GMN

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 63

Mastering:

DDD

Catalogue Number: GMNC0112

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
(6) English Suites, Movement: No. 2 in A minor, BWV807 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Anne-Marie McDermott, Piano
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(6) English Suites, Movement: No. 3 in G minor, BWV808 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Anne-Marie McDermott, Piano
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(6) Partitas, Movement: No. 1 in B flat, BWV825 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Anne-Marie McDermott, Piano
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(6) Partitas, Movement: No. 2 in C minor, BWV826 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Anne-Marie McDermott, Piano
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
A very pleasing enterprise, and for a number of reasons. Firstly, and most obviously, there’s the music, a well-chosen Bach programme, nicely contrasted. The recording too is beautifully balanced, utilising the acoustic of St George’s, Brandon Hill (Bristol) to fine advantage. Then there are Jon Tolansky’s notes, which are informative and nicely descriptive. Writing of the English Suites, he says that ‘they present a highly elusive and greatly demanding challenge to the performer, who must convey those complementary elements of head and heart in perfect accord’. Which just about sums up Anne-Marie McDermott’s approach to Bach.
Unapologetically pianistic and consistently musical, McDermott faces the ‘challenge’ by emboldening certain voices – especially in repeats, where she tends to go full throttle – and greeting all four Sarabandes with a wide range of expressive nuances. The courtly twin voices that converse at the centre of the Second Partita’s Praeludium are in perfect accord while a keen sense of rhythm keeps the dance element nicely to the fore. Even the rests between movements are well judged. McDermott makes a rhetorical pause (nine seconds) as the Courante of the Third English Suite gives way to the Sarabande but hurries excitedly into the Second Suite’s first Bourree on the heels of its Sarabande. It’s all part of an interpretative strategy, as is a tripping staccato, a melting legato and a canny approximation of the precise mood of each movement.
If all this sounds like yet another Rob Cowan rave of a new Bach piano CD, that’s how the cookie crumbles. I’ve been lucky. It’s a hugely stimulating view of Bach, less concentrated perhaps than Perahia and less decoratively coloured than Hewitt or Schiff, but impetuous, adventurous and adoring. Here’s to the next instalment

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