Tuesday, 12.18.07, 6:17 am
New Releases: CDs
Trevor Pinnock: Bach Again, at 61
"New Releases" posts are regular columns that feature reviews of new CDs that are, for one reason or another, truly outstanding among the many I come across every month.
Canterbury born Trevor Pinnock – who shares his birthday with Beethoven – turned 61 last Sunday. In his function as the founder and leader of The English Consort and a prolific harpsichordist he became one of the most important musicians in the early music movement. He recorded numerous CDs for the Archiv label – including all of Bach’s concertos. In 2003, after 30 years with The English Concert, he handed over his duties to the great violinist Andrew Manze who has, however, retired from the post that is now Harry Bicket’s.
After three decades with TEC, he wishd to move on to new – or perhaps old – things, focusing more on playing the harpsichord and, as he says, going “back to the rich English repertoire such as Tomkins, Byrd, Bull and Gibbons.”
Except that he was back on tour for a year of 60th birthday celebrations with a new ensemble he created for the celebration of that occasion. He and his European Brandenburg Ensemble, made up of players from many European countries and all ages played one set of works to audience around the world. There is only one composer who will allow a group of musicians’ sanity to withstand such repetition: Johann Sebastian Bach.
And so Pinnock traveled with the EBE through Europe and Asia for a year, playing on every stop – you might have guessed it – the Brandenburg Concertos. The birthday circuit ended with a concert at the Munich Herkulessaal in November (organized by Tonicale) where Trevor Pinnock and his “Birthday-band”, The European Brandenburg Ensemble” delighted – if in an unfulfilling way. After performing all six concertos five times in six nights, the spontaneous and improvisatory quality clearly wanted by Pinnock and his musicians (playing standing) might have given way to routine. At least some of the luster was off in several of the six concertos.
Not of Pinnock himself, mind you. The man who looks like 1/3 Ian McKellan, 1/3 boarding school headmaster, and 1/3 indefatigably happy elf played with zest and nimble accuracy throughout. In the D-major concerto (BWV 1050), that proto-keyboard concerto, Pinnock’s fleet and steady playing largely kept the ensemble together. The zenith of their Brandenburg-focus of 2007 meanwhile is likely to be their resultant recording of the concerto cycle.“There is such a variety of fine recordings of the Brandenburg Concertos that any new recording needs some justification.” Thus writes Trevor Pinnock in the liner notes to his new recording of the Brandenburg concertos on Avie. He succeeds on paper – whether he succeeds on record is more difficult to answer. At the very least he adds yet another very fine recording to the many fine recordings available, a quarter century after his recording with the English Consort on Archiv came out.
The reason for the EBE being made up of players of all ages and European countries was to to eschew any one particularly, nationally flavored style of baroque playing and to achieve the universality that makes Bach’s language so special. Pinnock certainly succeeds on that point: There is no particularly “British” (or other such) flavor to these Brandenburg concertos. He also succeeds in introducing a greater sense of spontaneity that comes close to spirit of (a good) live performance.
Many listeners, record clerks, and Bach-lovers still consider Pinnock’s 1982 recording of the Brandenburg Concertos as one of the top choices among HIP versions. I might have agreed with that myself, based on memory. But pulling these recordings out again proved that they have not aged not nearly as well as assumed. It also heightened my appreciation of the new Pinnock recording considerably.
The Archiv recording shows all too clearly how much Historical Performance Practice has improved. The natural trumpets should not (or need not) sound like that – and they don’t, in more modern recordings like the excellent Academy for Ancient Music Berlin’s (HMU 2901634) or Musica Antiqua Cologne’s under Reinhard Goebel (part of Archiv 471656). Similarly the unlovely string sound is perhaps authentic in the true sense of the word, but not appreciated , now that we can have better.
The strings of the EBE on the new recording are a delight, and not just in comparison. The natural horns and trumpets, however, continue to be a weak-spot just as they were in concert. That’s too bad – because where the earlier Pinnock recording manages to convey the architecture of the concertos with its steady paced, sturdy way, the new recording manages to go about things in a much more free-wheeling manner. Tempos are – except in the Fifth Concerto – ever so slightly sped up… but more importantly and decidedly unrelated: every movement sounds more alive, more energetic. This ‘new’ Bach is not as reverently worshiped, it is adored with coyness, sparkle, and a twinkle in its eye. Nothing limps, nothing lurches. Every concerto has a slightly different tone of voice, too, which makes listening to all six in a row a fairly stimulating – not tiring – affair. The atmosphere as a whole is quite light – partly a result of Pinnock opting for the cello (instead of bass) playing the bass part in four out of six concertos.
Anyone who especially likes the performances and interpretations of Trevor Pinnock will find this recording to be a delight and probably a distinct improvement over its predecessor. If, meanwhile, someone were to hunt for the (elusive) ‘definitive’ version of HIP Brandenburg Concertos, this beautifully packaged and presented CD set might be a contender – but there are at least a handful of other accounts that should not be overlooked at the expense of this.
Picture © Andrew Stepan Photography, published with kind permission .