Music

Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION

CLASSICAL

By: Staff Writer

7/11/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0

Murray Perahia

Bach: Partitas 1, 5 & 6 (Sony)

Bach on the piano was verboten, in the view of the great Chilean pianist Claudio Arrau, who felt the modern grand's arsenal of colour and dynamics stained Bach's original harpsichord intentions of limited expressive means. Our own Glenn Gould favoured a piano of quicker action and more immediate response to allow his way with Bach. One can only speculate how these two titans would have responded to the miracles Murray Perahia serves up here.

Colouring, shaping, variety of touch and pedal plus fully terraced dynamics are in generous supply, but what makes it all work is Perahia's organizational skills in placing Bach's original pedagogical pieces into compelling narratives of plot, argument and resolution. Each French dance-movement is a lucid story of its own laced with respectful harpsichord dustings inside immaculate delivery.

Perahia is among the few pianists for which automatic recommendation comes with every release. Such is the case here. 'Ö'Ö'Ö'Ö'Ö

-- James Manishen

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition November 7, 2009 C2

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