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CD Review

Johann Sebastian Bach

Two Faces of Genius

  • Concerto or Toccata for Harpsichord, in G Major, BWV 916
  • Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor, BWV 903
  • Concerto in Italian Taste in F Major, BWV 971
  • Overture in the French Manner in B minor, BWV 831
Linda Burman-Hall, harpsichord
Produced and Engineered by Gregory Squires
Harpsichord attributed to Michael Mietke,
copied 1983 by William Dowd
Tuning by Russell Brown,
historical well temperaments at a = 392
Recorded at University of California, Santa Cruz
Musicians Showcase MS 1086 63m
Find it at AmazonFind it at Amazon UKFind it at Amazon GermanyFind it at Amazon CanadaFind it at Amazon FranceFind it at Amazon Japan

This is a new recording entering a very crowded and competitive market. You can judge it at its best from the French Overture. I rather preferred the French to the Italian items; there is a real dance feeling in Linda Burman-Hall's rendering of the character dances which make up most of this major work. Not in question at all is L B-H's technical authority; hers are the fleetest of fingers, and there are some delightful sallies into quite extravagant and virtuosic ornamentation.


I enjoyed the programme as a whole moderately well; I found some of the fast movements a little relentless and uninflected, but that has to be a matter of choice, and Linda Burman-Hall is an experienced specialist representative of Canada's flourishing H.I.P. (historically informed performance) movement - she has certainly read more books about Bach playing than I have! Her notes explore Bach's eventual fusion of French and Italian elements and how he never neglects his basic concept of the keyboard player as virtuoso soloist.

Another passing doubt; my first reaction was that the studio recording was a little dry and over-close - though that depended greatly upon through which of my several CD players I was using. I find increasingly that criticising engineering and recording is a minefield, and mostly confine myself there to matters of balance in concerted performance.

Linda Burman-Hall is particularly good at devising unique mixed programmes, and I look forward to her coming releases of French Harpsichord, Lute and Organ Music in the Salon of Louis XIV and Heinrich Schütz: A Musical Portrait

Copyright © 2004, Peter Grahame Woolf

Trumpet

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