Search - Johann Sebastian Bach, Martha Argerich :: J.S. Bach: Toccata, Partita, English Suite 2/ Martha Argerich

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Niya | USA | 06/17/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's usually much more difficult to play Bach on the piano than on the harpsichord. Very few pianists are able to give convincing interpretations that can stand the test of time. They need to have good fingers, great intellect, an intuitive sense of rhythm, clear and clean sound production, a style suited to the music of Bach, and an awareness of the grand musical structure in his music. They also need the greatest sensitivity for harmonies and colors. Martha Argerich has all of those qualities and more. In her Bach, there is an intensity and drama that are rarely heard. She creates powerful and vivid characterization and impressions with the greatest economy, without ever doubly underlining anything. Magical and dramatic moments are often in fact produced by no more than a slightest shading or a subtlest rubato. The secret lies in the concentration. This is music making that challenges your mind! You can sense that Argerich has a most fastidious and serious attitude when playing Bach. Everything is so thoroughly thought out and prepared with the best care and the best musical taste and judgement. Miraculously, she still sounds effortless and natural. She achieves the divine simplicity, the final seal of arts. This recording will grow on you and accompany you like a faithful friend. It's like a mystical treasure in which you always discover new things and insights.Having said all that, I also have a small complaint! The length of this recording is very short (50'16)- one of the shortest in DG's "The Originals" legendary recordings series. Perhaps there is nothing the record company could do. This is all they had when Argerich recorded the LP in 1979. What a pity! This recording has been unanimously acclaimed as soon as it was released, and one would think that it should have encouraged Argerich to record more solo works of Bach. But that's not the case. One must settle instead for listening to the only other studio recording of Bach she made - the Cello Sonatas with Mischa Maisky. I find myself listening to these two CD's very often. They are stimulating when you listen to them intently, but they are a soothing companion for my book reading too!"

Thank You, Thank You!

Michael Newberry | Santa Monica | 08/01/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"I am not a musicologist or a pianist but I can tell you what I hear on this CD. To paraphrase a comment I made about Toscanini, every note sounds human. Its as if the piano is the vocal cords of some powerful, agile, passionate, and sensitive animal-whose sole means of communication is by sound. This recording of Bach does not sound like a musical abstraction, like how most interpretations sound to me. Stylistically, Argerich's playing doesn't sound like a Romantic mannerism, and doesn't sound like a period affectation complete with powered wig. It sounds like I'v died and gone to Bach heaven; it seems like she tosses off the complex structure of the pieces with irresistible movement, immaculate timing, and with an affection I would call joy or love. And far from sounding like Argerich, the music sounds like...Bach. But I have that sense that with all the interpretations I have heard from Argerich, that Chopin sounds like Chopin, Ravel sounds like himself, Prokofiev etc.I don't know if I made myself clear but I am raving! This is the greatest recording of any Bach music (orchestra, choral, whatever) I have ever heard. Thank you Martha!"

Argerich's purism and poetry in Bach is UNSURPASSABLE!

Eytan Ýpeker | Ýstanbul,Turkey | 06/18/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Martha Argerich is an absolute winner in Bach. Surpsingly so in some ways but not totally so: The maximum fingercontrol/clarity/artýculaion makes a Bach recording that one can easly call DEFINITIVE, a term that nobody dared to use for Argerich before. Not even the most 'purist' listener will be able to say "This is not Bach,it's Argerich"(BTW,listen to her new EMI concert recordings of the same tracks and you will be amazed to see the difference between the wilder/ truly 'Argerich' concert approach and this calmer and more Bach-like studio approach: She is simply someone else in the studio!..) Yet,in this studio recording righly reissued in the Deutsche Gramaphone's LEGENDARY RECORDÝNGS series,one can also guess that such a natural sounding poetry, such a 'color-range',such an elegence and beauty cannot be anyone but Martha Argerich. This is how the purist approach Bach should be ideally. Having listened to Richter's(Well-tempered), Gould's(well-tempered)and a few others' Bach, Argerich's recording reminds me of Plato's cave parable."