Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
English Suite No.1 in A major BWV 806 [25:09]
English Suite No.2 in A minor BWV 807 [22:36]
English Suite No.3 in G minor BWV 808 [20:42]
Vladimir Ashkenazy (piano)
rec. 5-7 April 2019, Potton Hall, Suffolk, UK
Reviewed as a digital download from a press preview
DECCA 485 2088 [68:27]
Vladimir Ashkenazy is obviously one of the biggest names in the history of piano playing in the second half of the last century so his first recording of the English Suites was always going to be a noteworthy event. Latterly, I have tended to associate him more with conducting than playing the piano and I have to say like his great peer Daniel Barenboim, I think it is audible right from the start that Ashkenazy is no longer a full-time pianist. Perhaps the most obvious point of comparison amongst Ashkenazy’s peers is Murray Perahia, though that comparison does the Russian few favours. Where Perahia’s Bach is airy and full of gently sprung dance rhythms, Ashkenazy sounds effortful and somewhat lumpy. It often sounds as if he is still getting his fingers round the notes where Perahia’s account of the English Suites sounds like the distilled wisdom of experience. The same could be said of yet another Ashkenazy contemporary, András Schiff, whose already impressive Bach just keeps getting better the older he gets.
Ashkenazy is not really helped by sound that makes his piano seem hard and metallic. I was put in mind of the old Melodyia recording quality for Sviatoslav Richter. Both pianists like to take a very robust approach to Bach’s keyboard music so clearly the somewhat rebarbative sound picture is not just down to the producer and engineers. Put together with Ashkenazy’s often laboured manner in the faster movements and the overall experience is not particularly pleasant.
As one of numerous examples I would cite the Gigue that concludes the A major suite. There are numerous instances of rhythmic instability and the jig rhythm is almost completely flattened out. The result is joyless. Listening to a few seconds of Anderszewski in this movement from his 2014 account is like letting light and air into a stuffy, dusty room.
There are good things here too – the opening Prelude of the A minor suite develops real momentum and, here at least, we get to hear the delicate colouration I knew from the Ashkenazy of old – but there really isn’t enough of it to put this disc in serious contention with so much ferocious competition. Even in this movement, Perahia and Schiff find extra levels in terms of inner vitality and poetry not to mention Gould’s absolutely torrential account.
The next movement of the same A minor suite demonstrates another weakness the latter-day Ashkenazy shares with the latter-day Barenboim: a tendency to rather glib generalisation. Listening to Perahia in this Allemande is to be transported to a different world of feeling and intensity. The melodic lines ache where they feel trotted out by Ashkenazy. Even those who prefer a more straightforward approach to Perahia’s will be better off seeking out Schiff’s older recording on Decca. Schiff’s is done with a lighter touch and a more skilful hand at teasing out Bach’s contrapuntal textures.
The Bourées in the A minor suite, like the Gavottes in the G minor one, do achieve an admittedly rather chilly elegance but there is too little of this to offset the rather earthbound majority of these interpretations.
This is my first encounter with Ashkenazy’s Bach, which had me wondering whether this is typical. Happily, he sounds much more like his old self on his 2017 recording of the French suites. I found a lot to enjoy in his 2005 version of the Well-Tempered Clavier so I must assume that this present recording represents a blip. Certainly, in both recordings the humour so patently missing from this CD is clearly audible. As for the English Suites on the modern piano, I will be sticking firmly to Perahia, Anderszewski and Schiff, with an occasional outing for Gould.
David McDade
