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GRAMOPHONE (09/2016)
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Berlin Classics 
0300721BC



Code-barres / Barcode : 0885470007212

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Reviewer: Caroline Gill

Midori Seiler’s recording of the unaccompanied Partitas of JS Bach (released five years ago – 4/11), had a number of difficulties that stood in the way of its overall appeal. These not only took the form of inconsistent tempi but also raised a barrier between performance and listener by over-emphasising what were otherwise sensitive insights. That is far less in evidence in this companion volume of the Sonatas, although it hasn’t been entirely erased. It’s a shame because, as with the first, this is a recording that shows Seiler to be a wonderful period performer (best known for her work with the Akademie für Alte Musik Berlin and Anima Eterna). The Second Sonata, in A minor, she captures particularly beautifully, displaying a power and clarity of phrasing and articulation usually more the domain of modern players with their robust bows, strings and set-ups, while keeping its sadness firmly within the realms of the human through understated expression and gentle articulation.

 However, there are some frustrating issues. The broken and spread chords at the heart of so many of the movements, for instance, are consistently slow enough to suggest an overstatement that distracts from the music and its direction. That is a particularly unwelcome diversion in the opening of the First Sonata, in G minor, where it is also combined with a thinness of sound that cannot support such a reduction in their speeds.

Nonetheless, there is still a strong sense in all this that Seiler believes that Bach’s compositional facility provides a stern framework for much of the freedom in which the fluidity of its melody is able to flourish – an absolute necessity when the backbone of these pieces demands a balance between vertical harmony and linear melodic beauty.

 

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