Information
Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
CD1:
CD1:
- (01-24) The Well-Tempered Clavier I, BWV 846-857
- (01-24) The Well-Tempered Clavier I, BWV 858-869
Evgeni Koroliov, piano
Date: 2000
Label: Tacet
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ARTISTIC QUALITY: 10 / SOUND QUALITY: 10
Evgeni Koroliov’s recordings of The Art of Fugue (for Tacet) and the Goldberg Variations (for Hänssler) have placed him in the forefront of today’s Bach pianists. This new recording of Book One of the Well-Tempered Clavier confirms his stature in this repertoire beyond a shadow of a doubt. Koroliov plays this music with such poetry, finesse, and real joy that questions of “authenticity” or instrument selection fade into insignificance.
In his title for the work, Bach deliberately avoided naming a specific keyboard instrument, and it’s known that this music could and would certainly have been played on everything from a harpsichord to clavichord, organ, or even early piano. In fact, Bach’s music is a celebration of keyboard virtuosity, and Koroliov’s performance offers a genuine display of the pianist’s art. His playing of the G major fugue, for example, has the brittle clarity of the harpsichord but a witty brilliance that is all his own. On the other hand, the mesmerizing, gradual crescendo and diminuendo he makes of the long C-sharp major fugue offers a textbook lesson in how to use the piano’s dynamic shadings to enhance the clarity and harmonic tension of Bach’s contrapuntal lines. Even the more familiar fugues–the two openers, for example, in C major and minor–sound refreshingly vital and interesting, owing to a combination of irresistible forward momentum and a really intelligent, ear-catching approach to voice leading.
Koroliov’s view of the preludes is no less impressive: he perfectly catches the subdued, elegiac quality of the pieces in G minor and G-sharp minor. His playing has all the gentle intimacy of the clavichord. On the other hand, he’s not afraid to attack the F-sharp minor prelude with real anger and an almost Lisztian bravura, and he can stroke the simple, arpeggio preludes (such as the very first, in C major) with a dreamy sensuality that has us confused as to whether we are listening to Chopin or Bach, and frankly not caring which. In sum, this is a performance worthy to stand beside Gould, Tureck, Schiff, Fischer, or any other competing version that you can name. And it’s better recorded than any of them. The only drawback: really pretentious booklet notes that, as so often with German productions, say nothing intelligent about the music at all, and exist solely to prove that the note writer thinks he’s smarter than the composer. Who is he kidding? Never mind. Bring on Book Two!
-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday
Evgeni Koroliov’s recordings of The Art of Fugue (for Tacet) and the Goldberg Variations (for Hänssler) have placed him in the forefront of today’s Bach pianists. This new recording of Book One of the Well-Tempered Clavier confirms his stature in this repertoire beyond a shadow of a doubt. Koroliov plays this music with such poetry, finesse, and real joy that questions of “authenticity” or instrument selection fade into insignificance.
In his title for the work, Bach deliberately avoided naming a specific keyboard instrument, and it’s known that this music could and would certainly have been played on everything from a harpsichord to clavichord, organ, or even early piano. In fact, Bach’s music is a celebration of keyboard virtuosity, and Koroliov’s performance offers a genuine display of the pianist’s art. His playing of the G major fugue, for example, has the brittle clarity of the harpsichord but a witty brilliance that is all his own. On the other hand, the mesmerizing, gradual crescendo and diminuendo he makes of the long C-sharp major fugue offers a textbook lesson in how to use the piano’s dynamic shadings to enhance the clarity and harmonic tension of Bach’s contrapuntal lines. Even the more familiar fugues–the two openers, for example, in C major and minor–sound refreshingly vital and interesting, owing to a combination of irresistible forward momentum and a really intelligent, ear-catching approach to voice leading.
Koroliov’s view of the preludes is no less impressive: he perfectly catches the subdued, elegiac quality of the pieces in G minor and G-sharp minor. His playing has all the gentle intimacy of the clavichord. On the other hand, he’s not afraid to attack the F-sharp minor prelude with real anger and an almost Lisztian bravura, and he can stroke the simple, arpeggio preludes (such as the very first, in C major) with a dreamy sensuality that has us confused as to whether we are listening to Chopin or Bach, and frankly not caring which. In sum, this is a performance worthy to stand beside Gould, Tureck, Schiff, Fischer, or any other competing version that you can name. And it’s better recorded than any of them. The only drawback: really pretentious booklet notes that, as so often with German productions, say nothing intelligent about the music at all, and exist solely to prove that the note writer thinks he’s smarter than the composer. Who is he kidding? Never mind. Bring on Book Two!
-- David Hurwitz, ClassicsToday
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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
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johann_Sebastian_Bach
***
Evgeni Koroliov (born 1 October 1949, in Moscow) is a Russian classical pianist. He was a pupil of Anna Artobolesvkaya, got lessons from Heinrich Neuhaus and Maria Yudina, and studied with Lev Oborin and Lev Naumov. Besides classical, romantic and contemporary repertoire Evgeni Koroliov has always been particularly interested in the work of J.S. Bach. Many critics attest Koroliov's J.S. Bach records not only having an absolutely outstanding position among all new releases of the J.S. Bach-Year but belonging to the most important J.S. Bach-recordings of record- and CD-history ever.
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ReplyDeleteKoroliov is such a great Bach pianist. I wonder if these links could be refreshed when you have the time. Thank you.
DeleteLinks for volume II were also renewed.
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CD1
http://preofery.com/372F
or
https://ouo.io/uJ4rk3
or
http://uii.io/cWjSN9
CD2
http://preofery.com/372G
or
https://ouo.io/3t98n
or
http://uii.io/NCDbR
Thank you for this and also WTC Volume II. I love your blog!!
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