JS BACH Concertos for Two Harpsichords
View record and artist detailsRecord and Artist Details
Composer or Director: Johann Sebastian Bach
Genre:
Orchestral
Label: BIS
Magazine Review Date: 08/2014
Media Format: Super Audio CD
Media Runtime: 71
Mastering:
DDD
Catalogue Number: BIS2051
Tracks:
Composition | Artist Credit |
---|---|
(3) Concertos for Two Harpsichords and Strings, Movement: No. 3 in C minor, BWV1062 |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Bach Collegium Japan Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Masaaki Suzuki, Harpsichord Masato Suzuki, Harpsichord |
(4) Orchestral Suites, Movement: No. 1 in C, BWV1066 (2 oboes, bassoon & strings) |
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer Masaaki Suzuki, Harpsichord Masato Suzuki, Harpsichord |
Author: Jonathan Freeman-Attwood
All four pieces are transcriptions of a kind, the two C minors (BWV1060 and 1062) dropping a tone from their original earlier contexts as the ‘great double’ (two violins) and the ‘violin and oboe’ concertos. Choosing how to build a canvas for these refashioned pieces can take you from the pioneering Leonhardt readings, which introduced one-to-a-part chamber scorings, to the thrusting modern chamber-orchestra versions from the likes of George Malcolm and Karl Richter.
Masaaki imagines these works very much as chamber creations but presented with a warm resonance which will suit almost all constituencies. The danger with the famous ‘double’ (BWV1062) is that the visceral dialoguing of the two violins can only be part-replicated on two harpsichords. Nevertheless, the association of these scores with Bach’s specific redeployment for domestic concert purposes (and, like Suzuki, obvious music for Bach to perform with a son and/or student) creates a sense of touching intimacy; both Masaaki and Masato rejoice in the simple elegance and devotional belonging which these pieces afford.
Although the orchestral accompaniment is curiously demarcated from the solos in the C major Concerto, BWV1061 (like Mozart’s K448, this is really a two-keyboard work, pure and simple), and therefore largely fulfils a harnessing role in the reworked version, the string parts elsewhere deserve rather more personality than the somewhat generic performances here, especially in BWV1060.
No such fears trouble the ear in the fresh and beautifully judged playing of the Suzukis throughout. Masato Suzuki’s arrangement of the Orchestral Suite in C major for two harpsichords is matched by the liveliness of knowing exchanges, luminous textures and an organic ‘galanterie’.
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