Bach's St. Matthew Passion

It being Easter, I cooked myself a leg of lamb, and listened to Bach's St Matthew Passion. There are worse ways of celebrating an Easter weekend in England. Except I over-cooked the lamb. When it comes to recordings of the Matthew Passion, I have Herreweghe (1994, and 2008), Klemperer (1961), Richter (1958), Harnoncourt (2000). For my Easter listening this year, I selected the 2008 recording by Philippe Herreweghe. Bach's music does not demand a demonic maestro in charge. It needs someone to set the tempi, to adjust the balance, to control the dynamics, to maintain the flow of the music. It needs good vocal soloists, and good instrumentalists. In the era of recording technology, we can also add recorded balance and overall recording expertise. I listened happily to the Herreweghe recording.

The hero of the day was Johann Sebastian Bach. The St. Matthew Passion is one of the highest peaks of all western classical music, along with the Mass in B minor. At times in his cantatas, Bach would appear to be composing by numbers (but to a very high standard). Not with the St. Matthew Passion; this is Bach putting all his immense skill and genius into nearly three solid hours of great music. From the initial Kommt, ihr Töchter, helft mir klagen, until the final Wir setzen uns mit Tränen nieder, we listen in enthralled amazement.

Casts on rival recordings include Christoph Prégardien, Bernarda Fink, Christiane Schäfer, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Christa Ludwig, Ernst Haefliger, and Irmgard Seefried. Herreweghe II has a good cast, including Ian Bostridge, Andreas Scholl, Werner Güra, and Dietrich Henschel. No quibbles about that. My equipment allows me to adjust the volume at the press of a button. If I had a speed button, I'd occasionally press it for minus 6 percent. That's about the only criticism I can come up with for Herreweghe II. And no criticisms whatsoever for Bach's music.

 

The music of Béla Bartók

Josef Haydn wrote 68 string quartets. Mozart wrote 23, Beethoven 16, Schubert around 20, and Shostakovich 15. I love string quartets and recalled having on my shelf for several decades a double CD album of the six string quartets by Béla Bartók, recorded in 1965 by the Novak Quartet. I took them down out of curiosity, blew off the dust, and settled down.

I have never taken to Bartok's music; I have always found it dessicated and lacking in soul. So it was now with the string quartets; I listened to two of them, then decided I was wasting my life and listening time. One would have thought Bartok would have learned from his extensive folk song collecting that, to appeal to listeners, music needed the occasional theme, motif, melody or tune. None of that here: the quartets meander down the river. There are no landmarks, no memorable sites, nothing to retain in the mind. The six quartets are firmly back on my shelves where my heirs will no doubt discover them sometime in the future. Mr Bartok's music is not for me.

Renaud Capuçon in Elgar

The premier of Edward Elgar's one and only violin concerto took place in 1910, with Elgar conducting Fritz Kreisler and the LSO. Despite its 1910 date, the work is firmly anchored in the 19^th century. Weighing in at around 50 minutes, it can often seem over-long, a feature of so many works at the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th. But it contains much genial and affectionate music, and I've always had a soft spot for it.

I bought the new recording with Renaud Capuçon and the LSO, with Simon Rattle conducting, and I am mightily impressed. Capuçon's elegant and sophisticated playing turns out to suit the work like a glove. I've never been an admirer of Rattle, but here he ensures that the violin and orchestra conduct a true dialogue; here the concerto is really a concerto for violin and orchestra. And, to cap it all, the recording (Erato) is extremely fine, with an exemplary balance between orchestra and solo violin. I listened to the recording with my full attention engaged throughout. I've always been an admirer of Capuçon's violin playing, but here he rises to even greater heights in my estimation since he appears to be at one with Elgar's sentimental and long-breathing music. Three stars, and my grateful thanks to all concerned for bringing this concerto to life. In future, whenever I want to listen to Elgar's concerto, this is the first of my twenty-three recordings of the work I will turn to.

The current CD also contains a recording of the late sonata for violin and piano by Elgar, a melancholy work that I must have listened to many times, but rarely remember having done so. Renaud Capuçon is joined by Stephen Hough, and the performance would seem to me to be the best since 1918. All praise to the recording engineers. Balancing a violin and piano for a recording would appear to be difficult; either the violin is recorded too close, with a distant piano, or more often a giant piano too close with a violin almost inaudible when playing pianissimo. Not here. Violin and piano are recorded as equals. The playing is also wonderful, with both musicians entering into the spirit of Elgar's work. I am running out of stars.

Francesca Dego and Paganini's Il Cannone

I bought a recent CD on which Francesca Dego plays an assortment of pieces mainly to hear Paganini's 1743 Guarneri del Gesù “Il Cannone” in action. The violin sounds splendid, as does the playing of the highly talented Ms Dego. Italians somewhat dominated the early 18^th century violin scene, with the Cremona makers, and violinists and composers such as Corelli, Vivaldi, Locatelli et al. The cauldron of eminent violinists later shifted to Central and Eastern Europe -- and is also now strong in China, Korea and Japan. There have been few eminent Italian violinists of late (and even fewer Spanish, for some reason). So I greatly welcome Ms Dego's arrival on the scene.

She plays here a jumble of different music, most of it connected in some vague way with Paganini, though Kreisler's Recitative & Scherzo does not really fit the Paganini mould. Paganini's La Campanella arranged by Kreisler for violin and piano is well played. John Corigliano's Red Violin Caprices is more interesting than I originally feared. Carlo Boccadoro's Come d'autumno did not make an impression on me, and I actively disliked his reworking of the piano accompaniment to Paganini's Cantabile Op 17, a work that should celebrate the cantabile powers of a good violin without the distraction of twirls and thumpings from a piano that strives to rival the violin for interest. Rossini's Una parola a Paganini proved a bit pale and lacking anything of interest.

I didn't dislike Alfred Schnittke's A Paganini as much as I feared I was going to. It is well written for the violin. Karol Szymanowski's reworking of Paganini's caprices 20, 21 and 24 has never appealed to me. When writing for the violin, Paganini knew what he was doing, and Szymanowski's attempt to make the caprices into duo music for violin and piano is somewhat doomed. All those — including Robert Schumann, who should have known better — who attempted to “improve” Paganini's caprices with a piano thumping away, are doomed to failure.

So a CD with interesting bits from time to time. Hardly a great success; there are hundreds of metric tonnes of music of shorter pieces for solo violin, or violin and piano, and Francesca Dego could have made some more interesting choices with music from the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

In Praise of the Treble Clef (and other matters)

In my teen years in the 1950s I had only around 14 LP records; mainly Beethoven, Schubert and Schumann. I played my collection over and over again and, to this day, I find it difficult to go back to many over-familiar works from that period: the Beethoven symphonies and concertos, the symphonies mainly with von Karajan and the Philharmonia, the Beethoven violin concerto with Bronislaw Gimpel mainly because it was on the cheaper Vox label and the LP also contained the F and G major romances for violin and orchestra. I used to play the romances on my violin (Gimpel played them even better than I did).

My father was a professional double bass player all his life. For some reason, I am a thoroughly treble clef person. A big part of my listening is to violinists and sopranos, and my principal reason for compiling this blog is to remind myself of the good things on my shelves to be listened to again. With such a large collection, one can simply forget things that have given great pleasure in the past. I didn't have such problems in my teen years with my collection of just a few LPs.

For sopranos and mezzos I love especially: Simone Kermes, Sabine Devieilhe, Carolyn Sampson, Joyce DiDonato, Véronique Gens, Maria Callas, Sandrine Piau, Diana Damrau. My violin loves are well documented throughout this blog.

And just for this blog: my favourite cuisines (in alphabetical order) are Chinese, French, Indian, Italian, Thai, and Vietnamese. My favourite FRESH foods are crab, Dover sole, lobster, scallops, oysters, whelks, squid, mussels, rump steak, veal chops, duck, spaghetti al ragù, spaghetti alle vongole. All very un-English, I'm afraid.

Bach's Musical Offering, from Bratislava

J.S. Bach's Musikalisches Opfer BWV 1079 is a bit of a strange beast. A collection of canons and fugues on a Ricerar theme, Bach left no order for the pieces, nor any indication of instrumentation. The whole lasts for just under one hour and makes for delightful listening. I listened to it by the Czech group Capella Istropolitana, a small breakaway group from the Czech Philharmonic directed from the cello by Christian Benda with a flute and violin also playing. A harpsichord is listed but, fortunately, rarely seems to be audible. The recording dates from distant 1993 and is still excellent listening. Company is Naxos, of course, and the recording was made in Bratislava. It was in Bratislava, long ago, that I ate in a restaurant offering wild boar in game sauce. Only the menu translated it as “savage pig in wild custard”. I ate the savage pig, none the less.

 

Ning Feng and the Paganini Caprices

I appear to have some eighteen different recordings of the 24 Capricci by Niccolò Paganini. I added a new one by the Chinese violinist, Ning Feng, since I greatly admire his playing. Feng is a top virtuoso on the violin and, of course, the Paganini caprices come out note-perfect. I admired Feng's virtuosity, but also his wide dynamic range and his ability to make the caprices interesting musically, as well as extreme virtuosic. There is a wide dynamic range in both playing and recording. The tricky sixth caprice is whispered as is the first theme of the twentieth. Solo violins can be tricky to record, but the Dutch engineers here have done well, with the violin at an intelligent distance from the recording microphones. So far, so excellent.

My only negative thought with Feng's superb playing is with his violin on this recording. There are some truly excellent modern violins around, but the violin by Samuel Zygmuntowicz (2017) is not one of them. It sounds scrawny at times, and lacks sonority throughout the range, sounding a bit new and unbroken-in, needing another decade or so of daily exercise. Feng might even have done better had he borrowed my violin.

Well, eighteen different recordings of the Capricci is probably quite enough, though if the rumour that Alina Ibragimova is also recording them is true, I might have to stop at nineteen. I recently admired the versions by two more young violinists, Augustin Hadelich, and Sueye Park. Enough is enough!

Bach's "48" with Edwin Fischer

I have just completed a journey of nearly four hours through Bach's 48 Preludes & Fugues. Music that is endlessly fascinating, endlessly varied, and endlessly satisfying. Bach knew what he was doing when he wrote the 48 so they fitted comfortably on four CDs; apart from anything else, this enables the listener to approach the music in four chunks of around one hour each. The 48 do not fit well into live concert performances, which is probably why pianists play just a small selection of the total. The works show Bach's love of fugues, polyphony, counterpoint, and sheer inventiveness. After I had finished listening to the 48^th Prelude and Fugue, my reaction was to cry “More! More!”

My guide throughout the four hours was Edwin Fischer, recorded in 1933-4. A rough calculation shows that in those days, the whole work would have required around 50 sides of 78 rpm disks. Fischer had a lovely touch on the keyboard, and brought a wide range of dynamics to the set. For me, it's an all-time classic for satisfying listening, and I do not contemplate finding a competitive performance.

Nearly 90 years on, the sound of Fischer's playing is still perfectly acceptable in the Naxos transfers I was listening to. Where would we music lovers be without Naxos? Bravo Johann Sebastian Bach, Edwin Fischer, and Naxos!

The Grumiaux Trio in Beethoven and Mozart

“Civilised” is the only appropriate adjective for the latest CD plucked from my archives, where the Grumiaux Trio is recorded at the Schwetzingen Festival in 1966 by the SWR radio station in Stuttgart. The music is eminently civilised: early Beethoven (the string trio opus 9 number 1 by early Beethoven, the duo for violin and viola K 423 by Mozart, and the divertimento K563 by Mozart). Each one of the high points of the 18^th classical tradition.

For me, Arthur Grumiaux was one of the three great violinists of the 20^th century (on the podium with Kreisler and Heifetz). A suave, meticulous violinist with an immaculate virtuoso technique that enabled him to play anything and everything, Grumiaux carried the flame of the Franco-Belgian school of violin playing. Never a constantly-touring virtuoso, Grumiaux travelled little outside Europe and appears to have rejoiced especially in playing chamber music with chosen colleagues.

This current CD comes from SWR Music, distributed by Hänssler Classic. As I have remarked before, Grumiaux live is often even better than Grumiaux in the studio. In the current world, it's a rare and necessary treat to be able to bask in 18^th musical civilisation for an hour or so. Musically, I appear to be stuck for the time being in the 18^th century. There are worse places to be.

Joyce DiDonato, Sandrine Piau, and Handel

I have hundreds of recordings of the music of Handel and Bach. During the current long Covid lockdown, they are a great comfort. They include an immense library of recordings of Handel's music – duets, cantatas, operas, and oratorios, as well as many recordings of excerpts, particularly of opera arias. Ditto a library of Bach recordings, plus many others of 18th-century music (including that of Purcell who died in 1695 at the age of 36). The 18^th century with Bach, Handel, Pergolesi, Vivaldi, the Scarlattis, Rameau, Haydn and Mozart has become, at the moment, my listening period of choice. A pity about all those 19^th and 20th-century composers for the moment, until my tastes change again and the wind swings round to the 19^th century.

Stars of my listening have been Sandrine Piau and Joyce DiDonato. Piau has an angelic voice (although her diction isn't great). DiDonato has a highly dramatic mezzo-soprano voice, with excellent diction. Together they make a fine pair of contrasted listening, even in much of the same music. Is there any more heartbreaking air in the whole of music than Purcell's “Dido's Lament”? Joyce DiDonato (with Il Pomo d'Oro) sings it most movingly, as she does Handel's “Lascia ch'io pianga” from Rinaldo. Sandrine Piau in arias from Handel's Opera Seria (Naïve, 2004 with Les Talens Lyriques and Christophe Rousset) gives us twelve Handel arias to complement her previous Handel CD “Between Heaven and Earth” that I wrote about enthusiastically a short while ago. DiDonato's CD of “In War and Peace”, an Erato CD from 2016, recorded in the South Tyrol, makes for over an hour of happy listening. Bach and Handel spent a lot of care over their accompanying orchestras, featuring different colours. Since singers can be a pretty unreliable lot, subject to colds and sniffles, it made sense to ensure that the band could always play up with interesting music to distract from vocal foibles. The band members would have been a pretty known quantity, whilst singers varied according to the season. It is important in a performance, then, that the band be given equal prominence with the singers. Too many recording producers, on the evidence of many I have been listening to, follow the pop music norm of lead singer with a big microphone up-front, whilst the “backing group” shares a small microphone towards the back. Not good, in Bach and Handel. Joyce DiDonato's recording of “In War and Peace” shows how it should be done. Airs and arias by Handel, Purcell and a few others are beautifully sung, beautifully accompanied, and beautifully balanced by the recording engineers.

To end this enthusiastic write-up on a scowling note: A burst of crass American commercialism by Erato (Warner). The makers of DiDonato's dress, jewellery, and make-up are all listed. On a CD liner note! No one tells us where Maxim Emelyanychev (the conductor) bought his shoes, nor to which barber he reported. Not a word about who made Handel's and Purcell's wigs. We need to know these things.

Beethoven's Violin Concerto -- and Antje Weithaas

Ludwig van Beethoven's one and only concerto for violin and orchestra is something of a strange beast. Written in 1806, it is stranded between classical, 18^th century concertos, and the romantic, 19^th century. Beethoven was not a violinist, and his concerto is very much for violin and orchestra. It can be played as a left-over from the 18^th century, or as a precursor of the 19^th. For me, it makes sense as a concerto written in 1799 + 7, which may be why I almost always prefer it played by classical German violinists such as: Erich Röhn, Wolfgang Schneiderhan, Georg Kulenkampff, Adolf Busch, Katrin Scholz ... and a few others among the 87 on my shelf.

I currently have 87 recordings of the concerto, having evicted many. Violinists on my shelves begin, alphabetically, with Kristof Barati, and end with Frank Peter Zimmermann. Today I listened to it played by Antje Weithaas, a classical German violinist, if ever there were one. The Sinfonieorchester Leipzig was conducted by Klaus Mäkelä, and the performance (off-air) took place in the Leipzig Gewandhaus on 10^th February 2019. The first movement was played as a true allegro (ma non troppo). The balance between violin and orchestra was excellent, and this was a concerto for violin and orchestra (such as the one with Erich Röhn and the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Furtwängler). All kudos to Mäkelä and the Leipzigers. The performance would have earned my three stars, were it not for the cadenzas throughout (including the first movement). After Beethoven, composers learned to supervise cadenzas (Mendelssohn with David, Brahms with Joachim, Khachaturian and Shostakovich with Oistrakh). Beethoven left no violin cadenzas, so we are at the mercy of fashion, novelty, and notoriety. If I had the energy, I'd re-burn the Weithaas CD to put the cadenzas on separate tracks so I could press “skip” each time.

Andras Schiff: "Music Comes Out Of Silence"

Books about music by eminent musicians are rare. Books about music are usually written by amateurs, journalists, critics, or academic musicologists. A refreshing glass of water from an eminent musician is the book “Music comes out of Silence” by the Hungarian pianist Andras Schiff. Schiff is a celebrated pianist, but I know his playing only from a recording in a Brahms piano quintet (with the Takacs Quartet). No views on his playing, but I loved his book and find it engrossing reading. Excellent ideas on cadenzas, “original instruments”, pianos versus harpsichords and clavichords. On most pages he has me nodding in agreement. The book is interspersed, interestingly, with his views on modern Hungarian politics, and on growing up in a Jewish community in Hungary during the 1950s and 60s, and in the communist state for many years thereafter.

Schiff, born in Budapest in 1953, is roughly of my generation (albeit a decade or so younger) so we share many of the same experiences and views as to conductors and instrumentalists. Schiff is a devotee, above all, of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven and Schubert (with a few oddities such as Schumann, Mendelssohn and Bartok). His views are stimulating and thoughtful and we usually agree: “does anyone really enjoy 75 minutes of harpsichord playing?” when discussing Bach's Goldberg Variations. Many of his youthful heroes such as the Busch String Quartet, and Otto Klemperer, are also my youthful heroes, and I was interested to read that he, like me, grew up in the 1950s with a 78 rpm set of the Mendelssohn violin concerto played by Yehudi Menuhin (with George Enescu conducting). Halfway through reading his book, I looked out Edwin Fischer's recording of Bach's 48 Preludes & Fugues, and they will be next in my CD player. Interesting books get you thinking and reminiscing. My interest piqued by Schiff's thoughts on Bach's Goldberg Variation, I have ordered a CD of the work recorded by him and I'll see how it checks out against my current favourite (Beatrice Rana). Reading between the lines, I sense that Schiff and I agree on thumbs down concerning Glenn Gould in the Goldbergs. We both appear to agree, however, on the absolute pre-eminence of Johann Sebastian Bach. He is a little more pro-Beethoven than I am, but that may be down to him being a pianist. We both agree on Mozart and Schubert though, again as a pianist, Georg Frideric Händel does not get much space in Schiff's reminiscing, and we have to disagree on Bela Bartok (but Schiff is a Hungarian, after all). He appears to be a less enamoured of the music of Rachmaninov and Shostakovich than I am, but maybe again that's because he is Hungarian and they were Russians.

As I started off by saying: stimulating and thoughtful books by practising musicians are rare. “Music comes out of Silence” by Andras Schiff is a laudable exception and makes stimulating reading for music lovers, as well as for pianists and keyboard players.

Sandrine Piau in Handel: "Between Heaven and Earth"

My long-serving Marantz CD Player went kaput when the CD tray refused consistently to open, and I was left during lockdown with around 1000 CDs and no means of listening to them. Utter frustration. Ebay supplied a replacement Marantz within two days; removing the old player, and installing the new, was easy but both needed me to lie on the floor on my stomach: and then to get to my feet again afterwards. Easy when you are 18 years old; perilous when you are 80.

 I celebrated the new player with Handel; a superb CD titled “Between Heaven and Earth”, with arias and recitatives in English sung by the wonderful honeyed soprano of Sandrine Piau, one of my all-time favourite singers. The Accademia Bizanta supplied the accompaniments, with some orchestral interludes. Excellent recording by Naïve. Gold-standard music for 77 minutes, with wonderful melodies, wonderful singing, and excellent instrumentalists. Handel's music is still going strong after some 220 years, and deservedly so.

 

Stars of 2020

I became interested in “classical” music at the age of around 10 years old, coming from a musical family. Since then, I have listened to music for around 70 years and now have a current collection of around 1,000 CDs, replacing my previous collection of hundreds of LPs. Most of my listening is to recordings of the past, favourites over many decades, such as the Busch Quartet from the 1930s. But, occasionally, a new classic pops up on my personal radar. My two classics from 2020 were:

Vikingur Olafsson playing short pieces, preludes and fugues by Bach. And Olaffson playing an imaginative selection of short pieces by Rameau and Debussy.

Renaud Capuçon with Bertrand Chamayou and Edgar Moreau in chamber music and sonatas by Saint-Saëns.

Three CDs that have given me immense pleasure, and are never filed away on my shelves with the other 1,000.

The Chamber Music of Camille Saint-Saëns. With Renaud Capuçon and Bertrand Chamayou

The sonata for violin and piano No.1 in D minor Op 75 of Camille Saint-Saëns has long been a favourite of mine (as it was a favourite of Jascha Heifetz). The sonata is beautifully written, passionate and melodic, and it is difficult to understand its comparative neglect by violinists who usually trot out yet more performances of the Franck, Debussy and Ravel sonatas. I have been listening to the sonata on a recent CD by the French violinist Renaud Capuçon, ably partnered by Bertrand Chamayou; a truly excellent performance of a work that benefits greatly from the sophisticated playing of violinists from the Franco-Belgian school of playing. (Heifetz, of course, was a chameleon who could expertly adapt his playing to the French repertoire. He recorded this sonata twice in his career, both recordings excellent, and those are the versions I grew up with).

It is difficult to understand the comparative neglect of the music of Saint-Saëns. His “Organ Symphony” is trotted out from time to time, as is his Carnival of the Animals. He wrote a great deal of music during his long life (1835-1921) and much of it, like this sonata, is truly first class. But one does not come across it often. The CD continues with the better known substantial trio for violin, cello and piano No.2 in E minor Op 92. A lovely work in five movements where Capuçon and Chamayou are joined by the cellist, Edgar Moreau (what happened to Gautier Capuçon?) Also on the 75 minute CD is the sonata for cello and piano No.1 in C minor Op 32, a work I have never heard before in my entire life. I'll save it for later, not being especially partial to cello and piano sonatas.

Like Arthur Grumiaux in the previous century, Renaud Capuçon is a major violinist who really comes into his own in chamber music. This CD (Erato) is expertly recorded and balanced; balancing a violin, cello and piano is not easy. The CD is warmly recommended to lovers of chamber music, fine music, and the playing of three expert instrumentalists. Not a CD that I will file away; I'll keep it near at hand.

More Emile Sauret from Nazrin Rashidova

Emile Sauret is best known for his fiendish cadenza for the Paganini D major violin concerto. His 24 études-caprices Op.64 are little known: until Nazrin Rashidova came along and she has now recorded all 24 in four volumes. Four and a half hours of solo violin playing.

There is a lot of double-stopping in these études-caprices. Each lasts for around 12-15 minutes, and Sauret was obviously a stickler for intonation, and for varied and versatile bowing. Etude 21 lasts for 15 minutes and is double-stopped throughout. The works will fascinate aficionados of violin playing; in general, they are less overtly virtuosic and have less “circus tricks” than comparable pieces by Paganini or Heinrich Ernst. I can think of no criticism of Ms Rashidova's playing. For the current volume, she again plays a Stradivari of around 1685 that once belonged to Sauret.

Congratulations and thanks to Ms Rashidova, and also to courageous Naxos. Where would lovers of classical music be without companies such as Naxos, Hyperion, Harmonia Mundi, and others. Ms Rashidova wrote the excellent liner notes for this release, and also co-produced the (excellent) recording. Quite a talented young woman; she looks attractive (from the one photo Naxos features) so thank goodness she did not record for Warner or DG where 8-10 photos of her would be plastered throughout the booklet. Naxos's cover features a large picture of .... Emile Sauret.

Christmas 1948

Things would start around October when my mother would assemble the ingredients for The Christmas Pudding. We children were all invited to stir the mixture, into which were incorporated sixpenny pieces (unwashed). The puddings were then boiled overnight for eight hours, with the family on alert to ensure the puddings never boiled dry. On the 24^th December, two chickens were selected from the bottom of the garden to suffer the ultimate penalty. My father tried to kill the two by tying their necks in knots, but the chickens broke free and ran squawking around the room. Mr Pooley, the local butcher, was summoned and dispatched the two fowls with a blow to their necks. My mother then plucked them, decapitated them, and cleaned out their entrails, watched by her appalled children. On 25^th, the family settled down to a Christmas dinner (food, at last!) and devoured the chickens, the vegetables, and the “custard” with the Christmas pudding.

Fast forward to 2020 ......

Sigiswald Kuijken and the Bach Brandenburgs

Having much enjoyed listening to Sigiswald Kuijken and La Petite Bande during my traversal of Bach cantatas, I decided to invest in La Bande and Kuijken in the Brandenburgs (Deutsche Harmonia Mundi, 1993-4). Bach's music needs expert players, and a well-balanced recording so that the many parts of Bach's polyphony can be heard and enjoyed. This Kuijken set conforms to those requirements. In particular, with Kuijken in charge, the frequent important solo violin input (for example, in the 4^th Brandenburg) can be enjoyed. Tempi in this set can be somewhat brisk (for example, in the final movement of the third Brandenburg), but I was never unduly disturbed.

One oddity of the set is that there is no trumpet in the second Brandenburg; a horn is used instead. I can't say I am unduly bothered nor, I suspect would Bach had been; he was always varying instrumentation and vocal parts according to what performers were available for the occasion. And, secretly, I prefer the sound of the horn (“Clarintrompette”) in chamber music, where a traditional trumpet is a bit strident and does not blend well with the other chamber instruments. For the “missing” second movement of the third Brandenburg, where Bach just left just two cadential chords, Kuijken offers a short solo violin flourish before the chords. Personally, I prefer Kati Debretzeni's improvisation in the Pinnock recording, but almost anything is better than just playing the two chords; better to omit them altogether and just go into the last movement unless one is going to insert something tasteful and appropriate. The first and third movements of no.5 dance along impressively and, for once, the harpsichord is well-balanced and not too dominant. The slow movement has some lovely duet playing, particularly the violin playing of Sigiswald himself. Sigiswald is ably aided throughout the set by his extraordinary brothers: Barthold (recorder and flute) and Wieland (cello). An all-star family.

Well, that is probably the end of my Brandenburg listening for a few months. They are, however, eternally enjoyable and I never grow tired of listening to them, particularly if the recording is well played, well-balanced and one can hear all the parts. Nearly 70 years ago when I first met them, the Brandenburgs were the province of large symphony orchestras. At least some things in music are done better nowadays.