Johann Sebastian Bach - Partitas for Keyboard Nos. 1, 5 & 6 (Murray Perahia)

Information

Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach

• (01-06) Partita No. 1 in B major, BWV 825
• (07-13) Partita No. 5 in G major, BWV 829
• (14-20) Partita No. 6 in E minor, BWV 830

Murray Perahia, piano
Date: 2009
Label: Sony Classical

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Review

Murray Perahia completes the Partitas and jumps to the top of the heap

The high standards of stylish perception and pianistic finesse Murray Perahia brought to Bach’s Partitas Nos 2, 3 and 4 (7/08) happily inform Nos 1, 5 and 6, where beauty and strength merge as one. Perahia’s legato and detached articulations are always meaningful and tonally varied without exaggeration or contrivance, and each note of every ornament sings out with unforced exactitude. Repeats vary in regard to touch, voicings, accents, embellishments, but with discretion and the utmost in expressive economy. All of these virtues add up to one of the most thoughtful, well proportioned and fastidiously detailed B flat Partita accounts in recent memory, capped by an unusually loud yet unaggresive Gigue. Picture Glenn Gould’s razor-sharp contrapuntal fingerwork in bed with Edwin Fischer’s velvet paws (figuratively, not literally, I hasten to add!) to get the gist of the E minor Partita’s Tempo di Gavotta or the completely natural specificity with which Perahia apreggiates the Sarabande’s chords. Similar observations apply to the G major Partita.

Some might wish for more animation and point in the Allemande in the manner of András Schiff (Decca, 11/84), yet Perahia’s supreme command of the music’s conversational give-and-take more than justifies his lyrical, leisurely point of view. If you seek the Bach Partitas on piano in state-of-the-art sound, Perahia easily warrants top honours alongside Schiff’s first recording, Angela Hewitt (Hyperion, 6/97) and the underrated Zhu Xiao-Mei (Mandala).

-- Jed Distler, Gramophone

More reviews:
ClassicsToday  ARTISTIC QUALITY: 10 / SOUND QUALITY: 10
http://www.bbc.co.uk/music/reviews/5n5c
http://www.allmusic.com/album/bach-partitas-no-1-5-6-mw0001946583
http://www.amazon.com/Bach-Partitas-Nos-Johann-Sebastian/dp/B002C4G3PI

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Johann Sebastian Bach (31 March [O.S. 21 March] 1685 – 28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the Baroque period. Bach enriched established German styles through his mastery of counterpoint, harmonic and motivic organisation, and his adaptation of rhythms, forms, and textures from Italy and France. He is known for instrumental compositions such as the Brandenburg Concertos and the Goldberg Variations, and vocal music such as the St Matthew Passion and the Mass in B minor. Since the 19th-century Bach Revival he has been generally regarded as one of the greatest composers of all time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Sebastian_Bach

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Murray Perahia (born April 19, 1947 in New York) is an American concert pianist and conductor. Perahia studied with Mieczysław Horszowski at Mannes College, and also attended Marlboro Music School, where he studied with musicians Rudolf Serkin, Alexander Schneider, and Pablo Casals, among others.. Besides his solo career, he is active in chamber music and appeared regularly with the Guarneri and Budapest String Quartets. He is also Principal Guest Conductor of the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, with which he records and performs. He is loved for his warm, gentle, smooth and lyrical qualities of playing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murray_Perahia

http://murrayperahia.com/

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