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Reviewer: Rob Cowan Jirií Bárta is his own closest rival here, his earlier Supraphon recording vying with this Animal Music remake. The two versions are fairly similar, though sitting uncomfortably through the occasionally awkward fast Courantes on the Baroque cello had me imagining that things must have been quite different back in the 1990s. As it happens I was quite wrong. In terms of the tempo, say of the Courante from the Second Suite, the two performances are virtually identical – but the process of comparing does reveal greater fluency and bite on the earlier version. Listening to the two accounts of the Gigue from the same Suite finds Bárta marginally broadening the pace in this newer option but more significant is that the earlier account is more keenly pointed, more responsive to the music’s potential for tonal colouring. Then again, the Allemande from the Sixth Suite is rapturously beautiful on this new version, marginally more so than before, though the pitch isn’t quite so secure, while the Sarabande from the Fifth Suite has significantly picked up the pace. Still, here I prefer the quietly conversational manner of Pieter Wispelwey. Toing and froing between the two Bárta sets reveals, quite aside from the differences inherent between a Baroque cello (Animal Music) and a more modern instrument (Supraphon), a darkening of texture on this newer version and a reining-in of expressive variety. These and other differences pose the question: is the adoption of ‘period’ manners always a good thing? Years ago the same question occurred to me when I compared the ‘old’ Viktoria Mullova with her more recent (ie ‘historically informed’) self in the First Solo Violin Partita. Babies and bathwater spring to mind, though there are cases where a stylistic switch can reveal stimulating revelations on both sides of the fence, cellist Julius Berger on Orfeo and Wergo being a fair case in point. By chance I’d just been listening to Daniil Shafran’s newly reissued Melodiya set of the Suites, vibrant and audacious almost to a fault, so Bárta’s gentler quirks rather paled by comparison. Given a choice, I’d stay with his earlier Supraphon recording but this period-instrument ‘new look’ is a quality act, if not quite on a par with Anner Bylsma (Sony Classical, 1/93), Yo-Yo Ma’s latest version (Sony Classical, A/18), the best of Steven Isserlis (Hyperion, 7/07) or the ever-inventive Wispelwey’s third recording (Evil Penguin, 12/12). The recordings here are good, though what sounds like the percussive knocking of fingers on the neck of the instrument is fairly prominent. |
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