Sunday, 10 April 2016

Bach - Johann, I'm Only Dancing - Red Priest


Rating: 5/5

Review:
Terrific stuff from Red Priest



I love Red Priest.  I don't enjoy everything they do, but I think their approach is wonderfully refreshing, their musical skill is quite astounding in places, they often produce genuinely thrilling music – and they quite often raise a smile, too.

This is a terrific album of Bach arrangements, played with Red Priest's trademark zest and virtuosity.  It opens with the famous prelude from the E major Violin Partita, superbly arranged and played with terrific zing, continues with a truly lovely Andante from the E minor Flute Sonata, then a wonderful, varied arrangement of the mighty organ Toccata & Fugue in D minor…and so on.  It's a really great programme, crammed with wit, beauty, virtuosic fireworks and, running through it all, a genuine love and understanding of Bach's music.

I love and revere Bach and I would be very critical if I thought he were being trivialised.  I think this is anything but trivialising Bach, though; it's a lot of fun but there's also real musical depth and merit here and I can recommend this disc extremely warmly.

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