Found a great Bach interpreter!

CyberGene · 2024-08-19T14:28:59+00:00

Some probably know from other discussions that I consider Bach the greatest composer of all time. If it wasn't for Bach, I wouldn't play the piano because that's how it all started: my mom plays the piano and she wanted me to start learning it too since I was 5 but I thought it was a stupid thing for years. It was only when I was maybe 13 or 14 when I once heard her playing some Bach on the piano and something struck me profoundly, so much that from that moment on, I devoted to Bach and, naturally, to learning the piano, so that I can play Bach. Expectedly, I was grown on Glenn Gould and would find him sufficient for listening to Bach, which is why for many years I didn't even seek other pianists. However, despite my love for Glenn Gould, I must admit somewhere inside me I also detest Gould. His playing is awkward at times, and that's an understatement 😀 I haven't listened to a lot of Bach lately, and you also know that I'm more into Scriabin and Romantic music at all, whereas my Bach devotion only lies dormant, waiting for those special moments when I am burned out and need to go back to the core of music. So, I've grown on what is the rather "robotic" Bach of Gould, but I'm more into Romantic music and I really started wondering why Bach himself would play without feel. It's absurd to expect such a great musician, who managed to condense so much emotion in his music, to be reserved in his playing. Especially on non-dynamic instruments such as the harpsichord and organ, he definitely must have used rubato and agogic accents in his playing. For instance, I love the F-minor prelude from Well-Tempered Clavier I and personally I feel it's a very dramatic piece that can benefit a lot from rubato and from dynamics that a modern piano can provide. My personal belief is that if Bach had had a piano (actually he tested some of the early pianos but that's another story), he would definitely use the dynamics for more expressivity. I recorded the F-minor prelude the way I feel it 3 years ago. I'm far from saying it's any good or worth it listening to, but at least it attempts to show how I feel this prelude should be played: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=puchMCtE14o I'm currently on vacation and have some free time for music exploration, so using the Apple Music Classical application on my iPhone, which makes it really easy to search and compare many interpretations of the same work, I listened to so many recordings, but none really matched what I sought, until I finally found an unknown (to me) pianist called Evgeni Koroliov. Yep, I'm also named Evgeni but I haven't heard that guy before 🤦🏻♂️ Wow! I'm in absolute awe of his entire WTC 1 and 2 recordings. The guy plays Bach exactly the way I like it! Seems he's mainly associated with Bach which says a lot. Apparently he's one who has dedicated a lot to understanding Bach, or that's what I want to believe anyway 😀 But I can wholeheratedly recommend his WTC, as well as Goldberg Variations and I'm yet to hear his other Bach recordings. Here's the F-minor prelude as played by Koroliov (just audio, the same as on the released CD-s): https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hn6nYbHeGQ Besides, the audio quality is awesome and the piano sounds great to me. The WTC were recorded in 2000 and 2002. He's on the streaming services, you can find him if you like, here are links to WTC 1 and 2 on Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/bg/album/the-koroliov-series-vol-5/1509333493 https://music.apple.com/bg/album/the-koroliov-series-vol-6-the-well-tempered-clavier-book-2/1512269442

David Lai

Johnstaf Thank you! The unison canon is hard to phrase well. Technically, the right hand has 2 voices that constantly overlap each other, and the left hand has a passage that's very active… I'm glad you found it clear and direct, that was what I was striving for.

jlg

David Lai Fantastic performance, no other way to put it. I’ll add that as insanely difficult as some piano repertoire can be, in my books Bach is actually the most difficult music to REALLY nail, either in performance or in a recording studio. Few pianists (and I don’t consider myself one of them) can play Bach. My opinion only, obviously: Bach “exposes” one’s musical aptitude unrelentingly. Bach is unforgiving, a bit like the opening bars of Beethoven’s G major piano concerto, if I may cite a crazy example. If you don’t get pretty much everything exactly “right,” you’re done. YOU may hear lapses in your interpretation and performance of the Goldberg V, but I didn’t!

jdg78

Absolutely fabulous performance, David - as good as I've ever heard from anyone. Incredibly clear and articulate playing, immaculate voicing, and a deeply musical interpretation. Four stars!

David Lai

jlg Thank you! I'm already noticing how I can improve the next time I play it. 🙂

David Lai

jdg78 I'll get the missing star from you next time, LOL. Thank you! 🙂

jdg78

David Lai There's no missing star - I was grading on a 4 star scale!

David Lai

jdg78 Haha, cool beans! 🙂

vagfilm

Congratulations, man! Wonderful playing. I listened onlyto the aria and the first 2 variations, and it was splendid.

David Lai

vagfilm Thank you, hope you enjoy the rest of it! 🙂

motif

Thank you for the joy of Bach and for your lifetime pursuit of the beauty of Bach's music, that you share with us! Bravo, David … BRAVO!!!

David Lai

motif Thank you! It does feel like an achievement to be able to play this from front to back, repeats included. 🙂

David Lai

The copyright gods on Youtube were crazy today -- 6 clips from my Goldberg Variations performance were claimed! And one of them, from variation 15, the refenreced Murray Perahia's recording. Though I'm honoured that I was compared to one of my favorite artists, it's still a wrong copyright claim. So I've disputed them all as of this writing.

Jasmin

Nice find! I hadn’t heard this interpreter before, but the clarity and phrasing really suit Bach. Always great discovering musicians who make the counterpoint feel so natural.

David Lai

I just got this CD for Christmas. This guitar transcription is really fun to listen to, and I can't believe he put all the notes of the keyboard version on 2 guitars!!!

johanibraaten

Today I stumbled upon this recent recording of Bachs d minor concerto by the young British pianist Martin James Bartlett. It's only the first movement but I love the lightness and playfulness in his playing.

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