Rating: 3/5
Review:
Not an interpretation for me
It seems like sacrilege to say this of such a magnificent
musician, but I'm not terrifically keen on Ashkenazy's recording of the French
Suites. He is genuinely among the very
greatest of pianists in huge areas of later repertoire, but to me he doesn't
feel quite at home here. I recognise
that this is a personal view which is by no means shared by everyone, but for
what it's worth:
Ashkenazy's technique and tone are, of course, superb and
the sound he brings from his piano is wonderful, so there are some lovely
moments here. However, for me this too
often lacks the firm underlying pulse and sense of dance which permeates Bach's
music. There is a good deal of rhythmic
freedom, even between different lines, which can be effective but for me
disrupted the cohesiveness so that at times the different contrapuntal parts
failed to gel into a whole and sounded rather eerily separate from one another,
and I quite frequently struggled to make sense of it.
I have a number of fabulous recordings of the French Suites
including Angela Hewitt and Murray Perahia on the piano and Davitt Moroney,
Christophe Rousset and Masaaki Suzuki on the harpsichord; for me Ashkenazy
doesn't quite get inside the music as they do.
However, at this level of musical brilliance these things are a matter
of personal taste; your taste may differ from mine in which case you may love
this – and fair enough. Personally,
though, I’ll be sticking to my other, much loved recordings.
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