{"id":10367,"date":"2013-03-07T08:20:20","date_gmt":"2013-03-07T13:20:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/?p=10367"},"modified":"2013-03-07T08:20:20","modified_gmt":"2013-03-07T13:20:20","slug":"keyboard-thursday-album-review-richard-egarrs-vivid-bach-english-suites-on-harpsichord","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/2013\/03\/07\/keyboard-thursday-album-review-richard-egarrs-vivid-bach-english-suites-on-harpsichord\/","title":{"rendered":"Keyboard Thursday album review: Richard Egarr’s vivid Bach English Suites on harpsichord"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"egarr\"<\/a>British period-keyboard master Richard Egarr, no stranger to Tafelmusik audiences, has released a recording of all six English Suites<\/em> by J.S. Bach. The overriding impression from his interpretations is a vivid determination.<\/p>\n

No matter how hard you hit a harpsichord’s keys, the instrument will make the same sound. Instead, a player varies dynamics with the use of stops.<\/p>\n

The other way to get the sort of variety of sound that makes for a rich listening experience is to gently play with time, extending some notes ever so slightly to emphasize certain rhythms and\/or harmonies — and vice versa.<\/p>\n

To be fair, Egarr does provide a comfortable range of dynamics and tempos derived from the nature of each movement. But, on the whole, his strong underlying drive becomes a bit overpowering at times.<\/p>\n

Egarr has thought through every aspect of what he is doing here, down to playing a modern Katzman reproduction of a Belgian harpsichord from 1638, which is more or less period-appropriate. Egarr has even devised his own temperament — the system for tuning the instrument — which is a sort of best-of adaptation he calls Temperament Egarr.<\/p>\n

With all the repeats, this is a pile of music, covering 2 hours and 20 minutes on two CDs.<\/p>\n

Each of the six English Suites<\/em> (BWV 806 to 811) features a Prelude followed by a sequence of movements in the same key, all bearing the time signature and name of a courtly dance. The second movement is always an Allemande, the third a Courante (or two), the fourth a reflective pause in the form of a Sarabande and the finale a jaunty Gigue.<\/p>\n

Between the last two movements Bach inserts Bourr\u00e9es (Suites 1 & 2), Gavottes (Suites 3&6), Minuets (No. 4) and Passepieds (No. 5).<\/p>\n

As Egarr writes in his album notes, there is nothing particularly English about these suites, which were written between 1717 and 1723, while Bach was working in C\u00f6then.<\/p>\n

The pieces are, like so much of Bach’s writing, filled with all sorts of numerical symmetries and messages. Each suite also has a completely different character, despite on the surface being cut from the same pattern.<\/p>\n

One thing I didn’t know that Egarr points out in his notes is that the notes of the key sequence of the six suites — A, a, g, F, e, d — represents the opening notes to the Lutheran chorale Jesu, meine Freunde<\/em>.<\/p>\n

I have a lot of respect for Egarr’s massive effort, but there are too many times when I wish he would have relaxed and breathed a bit more.<\/p>\n

Listening to the suites in a marathon, I felt overhwelmed. Even though they all belong together, and Egarr recorded them together, they are best savoured in short installments.<\/p>\n

For all the details on this release, click here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

John Terauds<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

British period-keyboard master Richard Egarr, no stranger to Tafelmusik audiences, has released a recording of all six English Suites by J.S. Bach. The overriding impression from his interpretations is a vivid determination.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10369,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3,26,36,39,46,52,1],"tags":[206,435,1160,1522,6471,2831],"yst_prominent_words":[],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/2\/2013\/03\/egarr.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9bakr-2Hd","amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10367"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10369"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10367"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ludwig-van.com\/toronto\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}