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Harpsichordist Richard Egarr's all Bach Harmonia Mundi recit

M. Levitt - classical music buff | Philadelphia, PA | 09/18/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This fine all Bach Harmonia Mundi CD, by harpsichordist Richard Egarr, has a great deal to recommend it, but it arguably could have been even better.



Compared to Egarr's all Bach EMI Debut Artist sampler CD, which was really a tease, offering just the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, and Italian Concerto, surrounded by sets of the various Little Preludes of Bach, Egarr, in this Harmonia Mundi CD, offers concert piece after concert piece by Bach, all played very very well, in a most interestingly selected, and absorbing program, with fine sound, taking up an astonishing 78 minutes plus.



It is both satisfying and most rewarding to hear "lesser known" Bach compositions, such as two of the his Solo Concerti after Vivaldi (BVW 972 and 973); the beautiful (and incomplete) Fantasia and Fugue in C Minor, BVW 906; the lengthy, and not often heard Sonata in A Minor, BVW 965 (after Reincken); and the fine Fantasia and Fugue in A Minor, BWV 904, in addition to the much performed Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, BVW 903, and Italian Concerto, BWV 971.



Egarr's playing is always alive, propulsive, tasteful, wonderfully clear and absorbing, yet I wonder what might Egarr be like live in recital, because there is a sameness to his dynamics, and a slight lack, I think, of the sort of spontaneity and excitement that can come with those performers who revel in playing before a live audience.



CDs like Martha Argerich's all Bach recital on Deutsche Gramophon, or Rosalyn Tureck's absolutely dazzling Bach English Suite no.3, which was part of an all Bach live recital, performed at former columnist William Buckley's home, come to mind. Tureck's CD is on the VAI label, and both Argerich and Tureck perform on the piano.



Or recorded CDs of harpsichordist Christophe Rousset in an all Bach recital on L'Oiseau Lyre; or harpsichordist Maasaki Suzuki also performing an all Bach CD - on the BIS label - of the Fantasias and Fugues.



There is too a fine all Bach recital by harpsichordist Pierre Hantai on the Virgin label.



Yet what pulls me back to Richard Egarr, and his Harmonia Mundi CD are the uniformly high quality of the music, the fact that the CD doesn't pander just to Bach harpsichord warhorses, the very interesting and absorbing way these pieces are ordered on the CD, the very fine playing, superb sound, and, for me especially, the astonishing length of the CD (78 minutes).



Highly recommended.









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