Perhaps the Best Bach Orchestration EVER
Jon. Yungkans | Whittier, CA USA | 07/30/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"(Note Bene: If you are new to The Musical Offering, as I was before purchasing this recording, read the book "Evening in the Palace of Reason" to learn the inside story of this fascinating work. As well as a dio biography with alternating chapters on Bach and Frederich the Great (whose motives for instigating this work, as the author claims, may have been suspect and bordering on the sadistic, as was Frederich's wont), the author gives an invaluable insight on the inner workings of this piece and what Bach may have been truly trying to communicate in it. If reading about Bach's life bores you, skip those chapters. The book is well worth it regardless. (Frederich's life was both more eventful and profoundly more disturbing.))
In 1949-50, Igor Marketvitch rearraned some of the canons in this fascinating work of Bach's to form them into a theme-and-variations movement and orchestrated the whole piece for antiphonal strings, cor anglais, bassoon, flute and harpsichord. The trio sonata, which Bach wrote with Frederich the Great's prowess on the flute in mind, is left as an instrumental piece for flute, solo violin and harpsichord after an introductory for foll strings. The Ricercar for three voices, which Bach improvised for Frederich on a theme the monarch provided and may have been intended to be deliberately impossible for Bach to treat in his polyphonic style, is an opening movement and the Ricercar for six voices, which Frederich also requested but Bach wrote later, realizing doing so on the sxpot was far above even his improvisatory powers, is used as the finale for the whole work.
Christopher Lyndon-Gee states in the notes state that Nadia Boulanger, Marketvitch's teacher, completed the harpsuchord part for Markevitch's fellow student Dinu Lipatti to play but Lipatti died before Boulanger was finished. Lyndon-Gee complains that this keyboard part is anachronistic due to its being overly
pianistic but it works perfectly fine for me as a consort for the
other two instrumentalists.
The whole arrangement is extremely tasteful, much lighter in overall approach than most Bach orchestral arrangements while adding color and texture. The effect is like seeing a set of expert watercolors instead of the the bright oils of Stokowski et al. Lyndon-Gee writes that Markevitch was happy with this arrangement -- for good reason -- and recorded it himself twice.
Lyndon-Gee was familiar to me from his excellent Naxos recordings of George Rochberg's Violin Concerto and Fifth Symphony, and he does an equally fine job here -- perhaps a little too stately at times but perfectly acceptable. The Arnhen Philharmonic, which was new to me, is an extremely adept group whose clarity and tone -- just dry enough to complement Bach's music but with a wonderful tone in ensemble passages -- is perfect for this piece
Don't hesitate on this disc. Buy it.
"
Markevitch's Elegant 'Musical Offering' Orchestration
J Scott Morrison | Middlebury VT, USA | 05/15/2004
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Igor Markevitch (1912-1983) is known to us these days almost exclusively as a conductor; some will remember him as an excellent teacher of conducting and composition. But few have heard his music, not surprisingly since he stopped composing at age 29 and did not promote his music much after that. He wrote, 'I would say to you, very frankly, that I am objective enough to claim that there is music which needs to be heard before mine, and for which the need is more urgent. Apart from that, if my works are good enough, they can wait: and if they cannot wait, it is pointless to play them.' Thanks to Marco Polo the time has come to hear his music. This is volume 7 of a project to record his complete orchestral music. And if I'm not mistaken, the one I've been most waiting for (having only ever heard a portion of it, 'L'Envol d'Icare,' before) is next in line, his moving 'Icare,' generally acknowledged to be his masterpiece.This CD contains Markevitch's elegant orchestration (and completion of the unfinished portions) of one of Bach's miraculous final works, 'The Musical Offering.' Many artists have made completions and orchestrations of the work, beginning with Johann Philipp Oley in 1763 and including such masters as Webern and Busoni. I have long loved the orchestration recorded by Karl Munchinger and coupled with Graeser's completion of 'Art of Fugue.' But that is a performance in high romantic style with lush strings and 19th-century expression. Here, however, we have a much leaner sound, partly due to Markevitch's orchestration and partly due to the style of playing exercised by the Arnhem Philharmonic under Christopher Lyndon-Gee, whose recordings I've come to treasure in recent months. I'm not musicologist enough to comment about Markevitch's completions of the missing portions of Bach's work. All I can say is that they sound right and satisfying to me. He reorders the movements and conflates the randomly organized canons into a single movement. The work was originally published, along with the two separate Ricercars on the same theme, as '1. Two Fugues, 2. a Sonata, and 3. various Canons.' Markevitch inserts one of the canons (No. 8) into the Sonata as its fourth movement prior to the Gigue. He terms the conflated remaining nine canons as 'Theme with Variations,' doubling one of them (Quaerendo invenietis) into linked versions, one of which is the inversion of the other. (I'm paraphrasing from the excellent booklet notes written by conductor Lyndon-Gee.) The two Ricercars stand as the opening and closing movements of what now looks like this: 1. Ricercar a 3, 2. Theme with Variations (the Canons movement), 3. Sonata, 4. Ricercar a 6. I have to say this makes for a very satisfying experience. I've probably played this disc a dozen times now. It has haunted me even in my sleep. (I suppose some will want to psychoanalyze that, but so be it.) This is incredible music, as I'm sure all will agree, and this completion and performance serve it well.TT=54:55Heartily recommended.Scott Morrison"
Track Listings (18) - Disc #1