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Andrea Bacchetti is one of more compelling Bach players around. Intensely
personal, musically discriminating at a very high level, highly
sophisticated pianistically, a polyphonist who seems to keep several
conversations going at once, he is a many ways reminiscent of the early
Gould, though far more rythmically flexible and vocally inflected. And as
with Gould there will undoubtedly be those who find much of the playing
here mannered, self-conscious and excessively calculated, albeit without
Gould's penchant for didactic exaggeration. Others, like myself, will find
much of it deeply moving in its introspective contemplation, its
suppleness of line, its masterly control of tone at every level of the
dynamic spectrum (though nothing is ever remotely forced). This
is playing
of such intimacy that the listener may even feel intrusive. It is also, at
times, playing of quite deliberate - and not always comprehensible -
inconsistency; mosty fluid and vocally entrancing but sometimes
four-square and relentlessly symmetrical, to the point, almost, of stasis.
There is much that is perplexing, but more that is revelatory and
profoundly eloquent. Very much unlike Gould, there is often the
feeling that this is how Chopin might have played Bach.
Bettina Neumann |
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