Texte paru dans: / Appeared in: |
|
|
|
|
|
Magical moments abound. The opening of the Toccata in D minor sets the stakes for these wonderful transcriptions. Sariel transforms Bach’s lower mordent – its infamous opening twiddle – into flashy virtuosity fit for his mandolinist fingers. The phrases spin out in improvisatory swirl; there’s something giddy and intoxicating in how Sariel seems to bruise the music harmonically blue, then retreat into secrecy for the bariolage section. The way the Toccata closes, too, is irresistibly discreet.
Indeed, the entire album is impregnated with these tiny moments of quiet eroticism. The Grave in A minor is especially moving. The narrative is sensually paced, daydreaming in its rhetoric and melodic unravelling (but never self-indulgent). In the following movement, a fugue, Sariel turns what is so often aggressive hewed bowing into figurations of pillowed caresses. It’s such a breathtakingly convincing interpretation that, in contrast, a violinist’s bow presents itself as alien machinery in making sense of this specific music. And while this isn’t the first time I’ve had this thought – Chris Thile’s 2017 recital in the Wigmore Hall of Bach’s Partita in D minor made me tingle with similar sentiments – it is the first time I think it’s been so marvellously captured on disc.
If you don’t believe me, keep going through the Sonata: here lies an interpretation of Bach’s Andante that belongs more in heaven than on earth. |
|
