Bach Cello Suites
 J.S. Bach, Cello Suites, Jörg Baumann Warner / Apex [mp3 avail. for $4]  .com  .co.uk  .de  .fr J.S. Bach, Cello Suites, Wolfgang Boettcher Nimbus [mp3 avail. for $18] .com .co.uk .de .fr |
Jörg Baumann’s recording is a rather conventional reading that stresses beauty over innovation of form, firmly anchored in a world of tastefulness, eschewing extreme—much less erratic—tempos. Well recorded in a dry, but not ungenerous space, the Teldec release must have been fairly impressive in its time, although it apparently never garnered enough fame to have been known to me at all, prior to re-issue. His cello is pitched somewhere above 440Hz—presumably at Berlin Philharmonic standard pitch somewhere in the 446Hz region. Further generalization is difficult with Baumann as well as Boettcher (who is tuned to ~440Hz) because they don’t adhere to any one stylistic route. In the Allemande and Courante of the first Suite, for example, it is Baumann who sets the pace with a neat and crisp pace. The concluding Gigue of the same suite is rather solemn compared to the swiftly dotted and flexibly played way Boettcher has with it. Boettcher plays the Courante from the second Suite similarly: light on its feet but never to the point where his considerably more resonant acoustic would start muddling matters. And in the Sarabande of the same suite it is Boettcher’s turn dig in far beyond what’s necessary to retrieve maximum beauty—he very nearly gets stuck. And Baumann’s tone, uniquely, becomes unlovely in the following Minuet. Given the confident way of Kuijken’s inexorable fiddling (lacking any acoustic ‘trail’), such questions rarely arise with his interpretation.
Nimbus offers fine annotations for their issues; the bear-bones apex issue does not. I particularly like Wolfgang Boettcher’s candid comments on his Bach playing (“…and how my playing has changed in 50 years! That development away from a broad, ‘beautiful’, uniform legato sound to ever more clarity, declamation and diversity… I’ve not always avoided the danger of making too many embellishments but over the years [they] have been simplified to a few suspended notes… and to Sarabandes, where I have made it a rule only to embellish the reprises.” Boettcher praises the excellent acoustic conditions of Wyastone Estate’s Monmouth Hall, confirming what I had a cellist-acquaintance wax about to me just a while ago.
Baumann’s tone is not as consistently beautiful as it should be; even the acoustics seem to vary. I like his unmannered and unfussy approach and his reluctance to dwell. But ultimately his recording is a competitor for a generation of cello suite recordings where—in my book, at least—Pierre Fournier is the undisputed king. And with Fournier, or Starker, of even Schiff, Baumann simply can’t compete—terrific E-flat major Gigue or not. Boettcher is harder to dismiss, because of the superb sound (close to the ‘wet’ side) and because some really lively playing. But Voltaire’s “Le mieux est l’ennemi de bien” strikes Boettcher down. Much as he has recovered from the “broad, ‘beautiful, uniform” style of bygone days, Boettcher still sounds too conventional—and at the same time not gorgeous enough—to seriously challenge the towering excellence of Jean-Guihen Queyras’ recording or the stunningly beautiful virtuosity of Gavriel Lipkind.
The Bach Cello Suites elsewhere on ionarts:
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