Yo-Yo Ma, Chris Thile & Edgar Meyer
Bach Trios
Nonesuch
A NEW classic to file alongside the 1976 recordings of Oscar Peterson playing Porgy and Bess on the clavichord and Keith Jarrett improvising on a baroque pipe organ on Hymns/Spheres, and last year's Kath Bryan album of violin favourites on the flute.
Cello, mandolin and double bass in the hands of three masters make instrumental trios of classic Johann Sebastian music that was intended for other voices altogether, including the opening "Trio Sonata", written for organ, and the closing Sonata for the cello's antecedent, Viola da Gamba. You might imagine a certain sameness would creep in, but instead this radical re-voicing unveils the huge diversity in Bach's music, helped by the careful programming of the album. At its heart sits the 11 and a half minutes of the Prelude and Fugue in E Minor BWV 548, while selections from The Art of Fugue and The Well-Tempered Clavier occupy parallel slots, and briefer melodies from cantatas and keyboard studies fill the gaps – perhaps the best known being Sleepers Wake, on which Ma provides the counterpoint to the pizzicato tune by Thile and Meyer.
Precisely played, but never po-faced, this is the sound of talented chaps refining their chops. Truly, virtuosity is its own reward.
Keith Bruce
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