J.S. Bach
15 Two-Part Inventions, BWV772-86,
15 Three-Part Inventions, BWV787-801,
French Suite No. 6 in E, BWV817,
Partita No. 2 in C minor, BWV826.
Fünf Präludien und Fughetten in C,
D minor, E minor, F and G, BWV870a,
899-902, 902/1a - No. 2 in D minor,
BWV899; No. 3 in E minor, BWV900;
No. 5 in G, BWV902. Nun kleine
Präludien aus dem Klavierbuchlein für
Wilhelm Friedmann Bach, BWV924-32-
Nos. 1-5, 7 and 8. Sechs kleine Präludien,
BWV933-38. Fünf kleine Präludien,
BWV939-43. Fuge in C, BWV952. Fuge in
C aus dem Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm
Friedmann Bach, BWV953. Fughetta in
C minor, BWV961. Präludium in C minor,
BWV999.
Andrea Bacchetti (piano).
Dynamic CDS629/1-2
(full price, two discs, 2 hours 31 minutes).
Website www.dynamic.it
Producer/ Engineer Matteo Costa.
Dates March and September 2008.
Andrea Bacchetti's playing of Bach is fluid, fluent, flexible and melliflous. The 32-year-old pianist has an
impressive CV, with an international career and numerous recordings to his credit, including a CD of Bach's
English Suites and a DVD of the Goldberg Variations, nominated for the first prize of Italian critics in 2008.
So far so good, but one must react to Bacchetti's playing, which I am glad to get to know, as tabula rasa.
I have mentionned its virtues already, and my principal reservations about this set concern two particular areas.
One is the degree of ornamentation that he applies to the repeat of the first and second section
in Bach's binary forms, represented here by the various dances in the E major French Suite that concludes the first
disc and the C minor Partita that initiates the second one.
To decorate a melodic line is, of course, part of good
Baroque practice, but its effect is also a matter of degree. For one thing, in writing a double bar at the end of
each half of a binary piece, Bach clearly wants the repeat to be observed, and it produces an intensification even
without ornaments, by virtue of the fact that the listener has already heard the musical section once, and is now
hearing it again.
When ornaments are added, it is often a case of "less is more", because an excess of
them can eventually smother a melodic line.
This is particularly true in fast movements, even though Bacchetti's
fingerwork always makes his ornaments clear. In slower dance forms, principally the Sarabandes, such agrements
become more idiomatic, and are more
A further aspect of ornamention is that it is more acceptable during a recital, which is a single event, during which one knows that the performer might well ornament a piece differently the next time he plays it in public.
In a recording, however, the ornaments develop a fixity through repeated listening, and they take on the false status of having been written by Bach himself.
The other thing that concerns me is the overall content of this set. With the exception of the Partita and the French Suite, all the rest of the music consists of very short pieces, while the dance movements of those two works are also relatively brief (the longest one is the Capriccio that concludes the Partita, which, in Bacchetti's performance, takes four minutes, and even its weighty opening Sinfonia lasts only 50 seconds longer).
As a result, hearing both discs creates the impression that either Maria Barbara or Anna Magdalena has put a whole slew of Johann Sebastian's separate manuscript pages neatly away in an oak chest, only for him to take them all out again the next morning.
In present-day terms, this recording feels like a Mediterranean or Middle-eastern meze, or a "taster menu" in an upscale Michelin-starred restaurant.
Having listened with intense concentration, I began to wish for a longer stretch of continuous music - a few of Bach's Toccatas, for example, or his Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, BWV903 and Italian Concerto, BWV971.
Such reactions are inevitably personal, and other listeners might be much less bothered by this than I was.
Nowwithstanding, there is much here that pleases and delights the ear. Bacchetti must like E major, because his performance of the Two-Part Invention in that key is among the best that I have heard, with a sustained legato as its two equal melodic lines proceed in contrary motion, while Bach's occasional demisemiquavers (32nd notes) are layed lightly yet with firm finger control.
His trills are precise and never "bumpy", even in the left hand. Occasionally he sounds too earnest: the D major Three-Part Invention sounds ponderous rather than jolly, while the next one in D minor sounds lugubrious and heavy, producing an artificial "profundity" that pre-empts the F minor Three-Part Invention, where Bacchetti invests its anguished chromaticism with a gravitas that evokes the B minor Fugue from Book 1 of the 48.
While it is nice to have so many of Bach's miniatures gathered togheter, they would have worked better divided between this disc and an eventual new one, as palate cleansers between more substancial pieces by him, with would also allow us to hear Bacchetti's lovely player in larger, more sustained musical structures.
Stephen Pruslin
International Record Review - September 2009