Shostakovich’s “conversation with Bach,
over two hundred years” (from Robert
R. Reilly,
Surprised by Beauty) is a marvelous work that I’ve cherished
ever
since I discovered it many years ago. No one - apart from Max Reger, perhaps
- has
so
ably paid
tribute to Master Bach. In this troubled Russian is unequalled in this 20th-century
pendant to the German master's Well-Tempered Clavier. It was my entry to Shostakovich’s
more acerbic works. I could - and still can - listen to it over and over again.
Back then there really wasn’t much choice when it came to recordings. Dedicatee
Tatyana Nikolayeva - who had inspired Shostakovich to write them in the first
place - was the only game in town (on whichever one of her (now four!) recordings
was available at any given point). Then along came Vladimir Ashkenazy (Decca)
and, in 2000, Keith
Jarrett (ECM) entered the fray. Since then, Preludes and Fugues have been
dropping like apples from a tree. Konstantin Scherbakov (Naxos - see
review),
Caroline Weichert (Accord),
Boris Petrushansky (Stradivarius),
Mûza Rubackyté (Brilliant
Classics), and Kori Bond (Centaur)
have pushed the count to a respectable eleven sets. David Jalbert’s on
Atma Classique makes it a dozen.
I’ve lived with Jalbert’s Shostakovich Preludes & Fugues for
quite a long time now, trying to figure out just how I like it. No matter how
many times I listen to it - intently, with the score in hand, or casually, Shostakovich
weaving in and out of the background - I can’t find anything that’s
wrong with it. Nor anything that makes it particularly noteworthy.
This is unfortunate, because I’d like to take more enjoyment from these
works when listening - but competence alone simply does not suffice to lift the
conversational spirit from the notes. I am very solidly biased towards Keith
Jarrett’s very unfussy, dry and almost flippant account, which comes closest
to Bach and made the above-mentioned repeat-listening sessions possible in the
first place. Nikolayeva, meanwhile, plays the same works rather more like Schumann.
That’s intriguing - and given her history with the work almost mandatory
listening - but it’s also tiring over the entire set. Both Ashkenazy and
Scherbakov fall somewhere in the middle between these two poles; with the latter
finding greater variety and interest in what are already wildly differing Shostakovich-Bach
miniatures.
Jalbert is not frustrating to listen to. He is frustrating to come to a conclusion
about. Anyone listening to the works for the first time with Jalbert would get
the music of Shostakovich in a personality-untainted version and could well judge
his or her response to the work on account of its merits. He offers an interpretively
clean slate and won’t likely prejudice the ears against any other interpretation,
no matter which way they go. The only possible negative aspect I could viably
construe is that the whole affair is a touch antiseptic. It’s just not
involving enough for me to know how exactly I feel about the performance. Or,
since there is a name for that feeling, after all, I am respectfully indifferent
towards Mr. Jalbert’s Shostakovich.
Jens F Laurson
Other reviews of the Preludes & Fugues on Musicweb
Tatiana Nikolayeva - Regis
Konstantin Scherbakov - Naxos
Composer - Monopole (incomplete)
Raymond Clarke - Athene
David Jalbert (piano)
