Music : Bach: Partitas Nos. 2-4

Rating: - Bravo!
This is a superlative recording.

For years, I have enjoyed both playing and listening to Bach's keyboard works. These partitas are among my favourites (especially the 2nd) in the repertoire, and who better to record them than Murray Perahia...

Some of you may be aware of his excellent recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations (from several years ago). For years, Glenn Gould's mechanical (and mathematical) approach to those variations had loomed like a spectre over any other recording I heard. It took Perahia to remind me that one can retain technical precision without sacrificing the flow and feeling of the contrapuntal piano record. I exalted Perahia's recording at the time, and always held out a hope that he would some day turn his attention to the Partitas. That he has is cause for celebration, and I defy anyone to listen to them without responding with similar enthusiasm.

To take only the 2nd Partita, it has received many decent treatments over the years. Aside from Gould himself (and others such as Angela Hewitt), for me the greatest was by Martha Argerich (performed during one of her Concertgebouw concerts decades ago). Her interpretation was so unorthodox, so uncharacteristically explosive... I thought for years that it could not be equalled, though in the back of my mind I still yearned to hear what Perahia would make of it.

Now that he has, I can affirm that it is all I had hoped for and more. In a strange way, it's exactly as I would have expected to be. How, then, can I be so simultaneously surprised and delighted? All I can say is that this performance seems to have satisfied in me my yearning to hear the perfect recording, fulfilling the Platonic ideal of Bach's intentions with the 2nd Partita. This may sound overblown, but what till you hear it. So delicate, so graceful, so balanced, so controlled...


Incidentally, I noticed in this Sunday's Times that this was picked as "classical recording of the week". Something tells me that its charms will continue to entice long after the week is out.