Johann Sebastian Bach - Concertos for Pianos (Evgeni Koroliov; etc.)

Information

Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach

CD1:

• (01) Concerto No. 1 in D minor, BWV 1052
• (04) Concerto for Two Keyboards in C minor, BWV 1060
• (07) Concerto No. 7 in G minor, BWV 1058
• (10) Concerto for Two Keyboards in C minor, BWV 1062
• (13) Concerto for Three Keyboards in C major, BWV 1064

CD2:

• (01) Concerto No. 4 in A major, BWV 1055
• (04) Concerto No. 5 in F minor, BWV 1056
• (07) Concerto for Two Keyboards in C major, BWV 1061
• (10) Concerto for Three Keyboards in D minor, BWV 1063
• (13) Concerto for Four Keyboards in A minor, BWV 1065

Evgeni Koroliov, piano
Anna Vinnitskaya, piano
Ljupka Hadzi Georgieva, piano

Kammerakademie Potsdam

Date: 2019
Label: Alpha
https://outhere-music.com/en/albums/bach-concertos-for-pianos-alpha446

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Review

It was only recently that the first complete edition of Bach’s multiple keyboard concertos played on modern instruments came our way, spearheaded by pianist David Fray (Erato, 2/19). My colleague Harriet Smith praised much of the playing, yet rightly disparaged the boomy and diffuse engineering. Alpha’s present offering is markedly superior, and tosses in a few solo concertos to sweeten the deal. To be sure, Evgeni Koroliov and company cheat a little, because they play the Concerto with four keyboards, BWV1065, in an arrangement reduced down to three pianos. Not that it matters, because the music is basically Bach’s reworking of Vivaldi’s B minor Concerto with four violins: in other words, a transcription of a transcription.

At any rate, one has only to compare the generalised and blurry blend of the opening Allegro in the Fray/Rouvier C major Double Concerto alongside the altogether crisper, more incisive repartee between soloists Evgeni Koroliov and his former pupil Anna Vinnitskaya and the members of the Kammerakademie Potsdam to hear what I mean. Deftly adapted from Bach’s famous Concerto for two violins, the C minor BWV1062’s outer movements feature sensitively dovetailed ensemble work from Koroliov and his wife Ljupka Hadzi Georgieva, while all three pianists raise the proverbial bar for technical and spiritual unanimity in the two triple concertos; indeed, BWV1064’s central Adagio proves no less heart-melting than the vintage Fischer/Matthews/Smith three-piano encounter. In the finale of the D minor, BWV1063, Fray and his colleagues’ largely détaché delineation imparts an effectively biting clarity between soloists and ensemble. By contrast, Koroliov and company bring a faster tempo and more varied articulations to the table.

One could argue that the solo concerto selections sound more arrestingly detailed in the finely honed Murray Perahia and Angela Hewitt cycles, yet Vinnitskaya’s right- and left-hand independence and suave articulation throughout the finale of the A major Concerto, BWV1055, will take your breath away. As for Koroliov’s D minor, he keeps the music vital and alive, shaping the phrases with a fluid sense of narrative and projection, not unlike the late Lukas Foss’s unforgettable performances of this work.

Those who want all of Bach’s multiple keyboard concertos on the piano cannot do better. Highly recommended.

-- Jed Distler, Gramophone

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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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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.

http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Bio/Koroliov-Evgeni.htm

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Anna Vinnitskaya (born 4 August 1983 in Novorossiysk) is a Russian pianist. She studied at the Rachmaninoff Conservatory in Rostov-on-Don with Sergei Ossipenko, then with Evgeni Koroliov at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater in Hamburg. As a soloist, she has played with major orchestras, including the Moscow Symphony Orchestra, the Dortmunder Philharmoniker, the Milan Symphony Orchestra and the Orquesta Sinfonica de Madrid, and has given recitals all around Europe. On 2 June 2007, she won first prize in the Queen Elisabeth Music Competition in Brussels.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Vinnitskaya
http://www.annavinnitskaya.com/

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