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Johann Sebastian
BACH (1685 -1750)
Goldberg VariationsBWV988 (1741) [63:44] Jesus bleibet meine Freude – Cantata BWV147 (arr.
Myra Hess)[3:52]
Chromatic Fantasia and Fuguein D minor BWV 903
[13:15]
From the Notebook for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach; Preludes;
BWV924-930 less BWV929 [8:08]
Six Little Preludes for beginners, from the Notebook
for Anna Magdalena Bach; BWV933-938 [10:05]
Six Little PreludesBWV939-943, 999 [4:06]
FughettasBWV961, 952, 953, 902, 902a [5:08]
Prelude and FughettaBWV899 [2:28]
Prelude and Fuguein E minor BWV900 [3:27]
Prelude and Fuguein A minor BWV895 [4:18]
Italian Concerto in F BWV971 [14:27]
Maria Tipo
(piano)
rec. Salle Wagram, Paris, June 1986 (Goldberg Variations);
June 1990 (remainder) EMI CLASSICS
3817452 [63:31 + 74:42]
No
holds were barred when Maria Tipo took on the Goldberg Variations
in Paris over twenty years ago. Her recording has now been
reissued in EMI’s uniform twofer series that revives lingering
material and reshapes it into comfortable double discs. Tipo
approaches the variations in true romanticist fashion. There
are myriad agogics and colours on display. Try listening
to the colouristic imperatives and ensuing line-breaking
of the second variation, or better still the mosquito accents
of the first canon. These are all part of her expressive
arsenal, one that many will doubtless reject as impossibly
mannered. Still, for those who stay the course we can try
to take her on her own, if not necessarily Bach’s, terms.
So stick around and enjoy the way she turns variation seven
into a limpid Sicilienne rather than a Gigue. She makes tremulous
diminuendi in variation eleven, constantly varying her articulation,
and gives us some ripe rallentandi in number fourteen. She
has a “Tipo” sense of pulse – I was tempted to add that this
meant “none” but that wouldn’t be fair – when she arrives
at the canone alla quinta and manages to transpose
up an octave for the right hand in number seventeen. She
pets number nineteen half to death and indulges in stasis
for Landowska’s Black Pearl.
The second disc was recorded
four years later in Paris. Hess’s Jesu is unaccountably
leaden but though still strongly romanticised I don’t find
so many solecisms in the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in
D minor. Her use of the pedal and the sheer richness of sonority
she evokes are best shown by the Prelude and Fugue in E minor.
She’s very free metrically in this selection, once again,
not least in the Fugue of the A minor Prelude and Fugue BWV895.
The Little Prelude in C BWV939 is richly voiced, and she
pedals powerfully through the E minor BWV941, adding a panoply
of metrical displacements as well. I rather like the vibrantly
stabbing left hand accents of the C minor BWV999. When we
arrive at the Italian Concerto we find her pawkily bringing
out the left hand lines of the opening movement and treating
the central movement as a purely pianistic exercise in romantic
expression.
As for some specifics,
in the Goldberg Variations Tipo repeats only the first half,
with the solo exception of the last variation. Here and elsewhere
her watchwords are rubati, rallentandi and staccati, some
bass octave doublings, heavy pedalling and a wide and ripe
expressive arsenal. The recordings were always pretty decent
without being exceptional in any way. Therefore the question
for the prospective purchaser is a strictly stylistic one.
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