Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
Transcriptions for solo harpsichord of concerti by Vivaldi and the
Marcello Brothers
Concerto in D major, BWV972 after Concerto, L’estro Armonico,
Op.3 No.9 RV230 (Amsterdam, 1711) by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) [7:55]
Concerto in G major, BWV973, after Concerto a cinque strometi,
Op.7 No.8 RV299 (Amsterdam, 1720) by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) [7:36]
Concerto in D minor BWV974, after Concerto for Oboe from Concerti
a cinque (Amsterdam c.1717) by Alessandro Marcello (1669-1747) [11:05]
Concerto in G minor BWV975, after Concerto La stravaganza, Op.4
No.6 RV 316 (Amsterdam, 1716) by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) [8:50]
Concerto in C major, BWV976, after Concerto, L’estro Armonico,
Op.3 No.12, RV265 (Amsterdam, 1711) by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) [10:41]
Concerto in F major, BWV978 after L’estro Armonico, Op.3
No.3, RV310 (Amsterdam, 1711) by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) [7:42]
Concerto in G major, BWV980 after Concerto La stravaganza, Op.4
No.1 RV 381 (Amsterdam, 1716) by Antonio Vivaldi (1678-1741) [10:27]
Concerto in C minor, BWV981 after Concerto a cinque Op.1 No.2
(Venice, 1708) by Benedetto Marcello (1686-1739) [12:07]
Sophie Yates (harpsichord)
rec. August 2012, St. George’s, Brandon Hill, Bristol
CHANDOS CHAN 0796 [76:28]
The confluence of Bach’s Italian concerto
transcriptions, Sophie Yates’s clarity-conscious musicianship,
and an Andrew Garlick harpsichord makes for a refreshing and thoroughly
recommendable disc.
Having thus begun with my concluding paragraph it’s best to amplify
each of those three strands. The eight transcriptions are those of concertos
by Alessandro and Benedetto Marcello (one each; BWV974 and BWV981 respectively)
leaving the bulk the work of Vivaldi. Bach wrote them around 1713 and
1714 when he was living in Weimar, and his adaptation of the string
writing for the solo harpsichord, to which Yates draws attention to
in her booklet note, is one of the most compelling things in these faithful
but personalised transcriptions. Bach included Alessandro Marcello’s
famed Oboe Concerto, and it too is fashioned with remarkable logic into
Bach’s patterns of writing, never sounding for a moment out of
place.
Next, for Yates’s playing, which is decisive and sensitive. She
responds as much to the music’s inherent grandiloquence as to
its measured lyric repose in slow movements. Further, as a listen of
BWV972 vividly shows, she marries grandeur and calibrated precision
to notable effect. The treble ring in this concerto’s slow movement
evokes a range of colours and timbres and the cascading virtuosity of
her finale, brilliantly rhythmic and untouched by any excesses of articulation
and rubato is a pleasure to hear - and exciting too, as it was surely
designed to be. She finds vivid wit in the opening of BWV973, and just
the right finesse and tempo in the opening Andante of BWV974,
Marcello’s Oboe Concerto in its new guise. Alessandro Marcello
and his older compatriot, Vivaldi, favoured spare accompanying chords
in slow movements and these are rendered with a ‘clunky’
assurance - nothing at all clunky about this playing, assuredly.
Yates ensures that differentiation of voicings is uppermost in the opening
of BWV 976; those repeated phrases with their echo effects are unselfconsciously
evoked here, too. The rolled chord staccati of the Largo of BWV
978 - note here the subtle finger weight to produce terracing of dynamics
- are especially fine. Her sense of the music’s characterisation
in BWV980 - both theatrical but also touching something like desolation
is admirable in every way.
Finally, a word about Garlick’s double manual 1996 harpsichord,
which is a copy of a Jean-Claude Goujon instrument, made in Paris in
1748. It sounds really marvellous and lacks for nothing in subtlety.
Fine booklet notes (by Yates) and demonstration-class recording quality
bring me back to my opening paragraph in resounding fashion.
Jonathan Woolf
