Should Bach be romantic?
Let me start by asking the more fundamental question: Should Bach be “allowed” to be played on a contemporary piano?
I personally think Bach wouldn’t have minded. Keyboard instruments were under constant evolution during his time, he was very open to adapting music from one instrument to another (and often did so with his own work). Now, what Bach would have done had he been able to ever play a modern Steinway is a very interesting, if rather theoretical question.
Now, does playing on a modern piano allow you to have a “romantic” sound while playing good old JSB? Let’s explore this thought with this recently released album.
Víkingur Ólafsson: Johann Sebastian Bach
Víkingur Ólafsson is only the second Icelandic musician I know (Silly Bjork jokes, anybody?).
He rose to fame at rather young age with his Philipp Glass album (and being signed by Deutsche Grammophon), now he releases his first venture into Bach.
To give you an example what I mean by “romantic”, is track no. 31, the adagio from BWV974. In a way, this could easily be the slow movement of a Mendelssohn or Schubert work.
Do I mind? Au contraire, I really like this album. It is a very personal approach, a very personal selection of material as well. But it never falls into the trap of being the only thing you’re not allowed to be with Bach, which is boring.
To make this album even more appealing to me, we get yet another piano transcription of one of the violin partitas (see here for my original article on the topic)
And also when you take individual well known works like the excerpts of the Well Tempered Clavier, it is very apparent that Olafsson knows what he’s doing, even compared to famous reference versions.
So to answer my initial question: it’s a very clear yes!
My rating: 4 stars
musicophilesblog - From Keith Jarrett to Johannes Brahms 