BACH: Per cembalo solo ... (Egarr)

 Johann Sebastian Bach: Per cembalo solo ... (Richard Egarr)

Review

In most collections of Bach's harpsichord works, the Italian Concerto and the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue are regularly found, but Richard Egarr is almost apologetic for including such favorites on this disc. He is quick to point out in his liner notes how hearing them in context -- alongside Bach's lesser known transcriptions -- may bring a reassessment of these overly familiar but brilliant pieces. Whether or not Egarr rescues them from their deserved popularity is beside the point, for his varied program is fascinating and enjoyable without any need to justify the selections. Scholars may derive insights from Egarr's study of Bach's development, in which transcribing the works of older composers played an essential part. To this end, Egarr provides much of the interest by including Bach's transcriptions of two of Vivaldi's concertos and Reincken's Sonata from "Hortus Musicus." But the lay listener can enjoy these virtuosic re-creations without knowing details of their evolution, and Egarr's energetic playing is quite engaging, almost in spite of his didactic tendencies. If anything here is too pointedly pedantic, it is Egarr's completion of Bach's unfinished Fugue in C minor, which is perhaps too earnest an ending for an otherwise lively album. Harmonia Mundi's recording is excellent, and the harpsichord's sound is robust and appealing.

Blair Sanderson

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The intriguing program coupled with playing that combines a keen musical intelligence with flawless technique make this one of the most satisfying Bach recitals I’ve heard for some while. The instrument is captured in vividly immediate sound
The dual theme of this cleverly devised program is Bach’s adaptations of the works of other composers, and his varied treatment of fantasia and fugue form. BWV 973 and BWV 972 are two of the 23 concertos Bach arranged for solo keyboard, the former his adaptation of Vivaldi’s op. 7/9 in G, the latter a reworking of the Concerto in D, RV 972 from “L’estro armonico,” op. 3. The A-Minor Sonata is also an arrangement—in the opinion of Richard Egarr “perhaps Bach’s finest adaptation of another composer’s work”—of a partita for two violins and continuo from Johann Adam Reincken’s Hortus musicus, one of two sonatas made by Bach (the other is BWV 966) from the music of a composer he greatly admired. Although called a sonata by Bach, it is closer in form to a suite, consisting as it does of five movements: an improvisatory Adagio acting as prelude to a Fugue based on a lively subject, a gracious Allemande that is thematically linked to the succeeding Courante, a Sarabande, and a final Gigue, decked out by Bach in particularly dense counterpoint. The whole work, in fact, demonstrates how deeply Bach imprinted his own personality on the music he reworked, as comparison with the original (which can be heard on the Purcell Quartet’s Reincken disc on Chandos CHAN 0664) reveals. The two Vivaldi-based concertos, played here with a dazzling exuberance set off by thoughtful inner movements, are of course part of a creative process that culminated in the Italian Concerto, the fruit, as Egarr notes, of a long and concentrated study of the Italian concerto style. Given the dashing flamboyance with which he plays the Vivaldi concertos, Egarr’s opening movement is surprisingly unhurried, in my view to its benefit, its opening theme shaped with little hints of rubato. The glorious cantilena of the central Andante is drawn with celestial serenity, while the final Presto is a high-spirited whirlwind in which Egarr brilliantly exploits the colorful contrasts of tutti and solo passages.
The fantasias graphically illustrate contrasting approaches, with the familiar arpeggiations, free flights of fancy, and bold harmonic excursions of that of BWV 903 starkly contrasted with the severe contrapuntal discipline of the A-Minor Fantasia. Indeed, this is a perplexing work, the cerebral, rather old-fashioned feel of the Fantasia succeeded by a fugue with a chromatic subject that seems to belong to a more modern, more restless world. It comes as no surprise to learn that fantasia and fugue were only united in the 19th century. Very different again is the extraordinary Fantasia in C Minor, a work of near romantic intensity that Egarr aptly describes as “almost Sturm und Drang.” It is succeeded by an unfinished Fugue whose chromatic potency and tension are such as to leave the listener suspended on an emotional tightrope when it abruptly halts. Egarr finishes his program with his own completion of it, offered, as he touchingly puts it, as his own “Tombeau” to Bach. I claim no expertise on completing Bach fugues (harmonizing chorales in the style of Bach caused me quite enough problems), but Egarr’s work sounds very capable to my ears.
The intriguing program coupled with playing that combines a keen musical intelligence with flawless technique make this one of the most satisfying Bach recitals I’ve heard for some while. The instrument, a modern copy of a Ruckers of 1638, is captured in vividly immediate sound.
Brian Robins, Fanfare Magazine