Customer Reviews

Bach: Art of Fugue

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I am not a musicologist, but I am someone who has listened to quite a few performance of the Art of the Fugue over the last 45 years and I can say that I find the Aimard performance to be among the very best. I did carefully examine the review be Villegem and also looked, in detail, at his many other reviews. He is obviously a discerning and well informed person, but I simply find his review of this breathtaking performance, at best, academic in the worst sense of the word. If Aimard's technique fails to conform to the scholarly work of several musicologists, what difference does that really make? Can we say with certainty that that is true? I very much doubt it.

We are separated by a vast gulf of time between the writing of this music and now. Who knows how Bach would have preferred to have the Kunst der Fuge performed? Who is to say that even his conception and personal style is the best for this music? How we listen and enjoy music is very subjective. I haven't found the performances of Copland's music conducted by the composer to be the best. The same holds for Stravinsky. I do know that Aimard's performance is like light penetrating the massive complexity of this work. The end of the final fugue is truly a moment of immense and cosmic proportions. This performance is very very highly recommended.Liberation from the Lie: Cutting the Roots of Fear Once and for All

If I have to pick a performance on Piano, Glenn Gould's recording, incomplete though it is, remains my favorite. After that, Feltsman's remains my preferred. I also have Sokolov, but Feltsman, to my ears, brings more joy where there is joy, and more sorrow where there is sorrow. Sokolov's playing is cleaner, more Gould-like, but without Gould's intense "romanticism" or emotional investment. Feltsman is also a more idiosyncratic pianist, willing to inflect the music with his own personality. Sometimes he does so to a fault, as with his recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, which I wouldn't recommend.

One of my favorites is Contrapunctus 9. Feltsman digs into the fugue with all the gusto of Gould's famous performance on the organ. Sokolov's performance of the same piece is slower and comes with a sense of detachment - a little too studied.

Aimard's rendition takes a similarly happy pace to Gould and Feltsman, but it is oddly monochromatic. The sense of an overarching direction or drama is missing, and this is the feeling that much of Aimard's performances leave me with. I have no doubt that he can conceive of the piece in its entirety, but somehow he doesn't translate that in his playing. The sum does not exceed its parts.

The other element that I miss in Aimard's playing is idiosyncrasy. Each of his fingers strikes the keys with the sort of pearled consistency that is the mark, not of the artist, but of the professional. I miss the unexpected turns of phrases and emphasis that are the hallmarks of a Gould and, to a degree, Feltsman.

I guess every Aimard-Fan will have asked twice hearing that his new album features Bach's Art of the Fugue...Aimard...playing Bach???? The same Aimard who brought us such wonderful recordings of the works of Ligeti and Messiaen and who became a highly recommended artist for the 20th century repertoire...?
But it's true and most of all: Aimard's "Kunst der Fuge" is incredible and one of the most interesting releases this year so far. By many regarded as one of the greatest enigmas in music history and as Aimard states himself in the booklet "..for a long time taken to be the height of abstraction, an untouchable object of speculation that only a few specialists were capable of deciphering...." this is exactly what Aimard does here: deciphering the code in one of the most logical ways ever recorded! The recordings of Bach's difficult work feature many interpretations on many different instruments reaching from Harpsichord to Piano or String Quartet and Orchestrations, as Bach himself never stated what instrument it was intended for. Aimard chose his own domaine the piano and by doing so reaches the height of the best recording of the work so far: Tatiana Nikolayeva's ivory tower recording which still stands out as the best. But in one way Aimard even surpasses her: In sheer logic! Never has one heard the different juxtaposition of the many counterpoints done so logically and clearly. Hearing Aimard, one has finally the impression of understanding Bach's last message.
As a minor addition the incredible warm DG sound helps a lot and the piano sounds very natural and perfectly balanced. So any pessimist out there who would never have thought that Aimard could play Bach or even come close to an interpretation of Art of the Fugue should listen to this as fast as he can and re-think his pessimism! For all Aimard fans to date one of the best discs he ever made!

Those who think of Pierre-Laurent Aimard primarily as the superb interpreter of Messaien or Carter only, will be pleasantly surprised hearing his Deutsche Grammophon recording. Those of us alreadly familiar with his splendid Beethoven, Mozart and Schumann recordings for Warner Classics will not be surprised with his debut recording for Deutsche Grammophon, an utterly sublime, truly revelatory account of J. S. Bach's "Art of the Fugue". Why? In one aspect Aimard is the best current student of contemporary polyphonic music for the keyboard, and he uses that knowledge to great advantage in these performances, showing utmost respect for Bach's intentions, without trying to insert his contemporary music-informed style of performance (I strongly disagree with another reviewer who finds this recording to be excessively Romantic. Having heard many of these works performed live at Carnegie Hall by him earlier this week, they merely confirmed another strong side of his multi-faceted musical personality as a superb performing artist with a keen interest in musical scholarship too.). Without question this is one of Aimard's finest recordings, and a brilliant start to his newly cemented partnership with Deutsche Grammophon.

I admire Aimard's playing ever since I heard him live several years back, and he never disappointed me with each of his new recordings, except this one. His playing is still excellent, but I didn't like the sound on the CD, which seems harsher than any of his previous CDs. I wonder if it's because the piano he's playing on or the overly done sound engineering during the recording. Aimard's playing is always marked by his clarity and liquid tone quality even with the most demanding passages. On this CD however, the clarity is still there but I somehow find the tone quality a little irritating to hear.

I put the word 'modern' in scare quotes to indicate that this is a recording on the piano that does not, however, like Feltsman, romanticize the music. What some may consider boring, straightforward and clinical I consider to be honoring Bach's intention. Bach was writing before the onset of romantic era taffy-pulling of phrasing and his music really ought to be played that way. This is not to say that Aimard isn't a master of phrasing and certainly his ability to bring out various contrapuntal strands is virtually unmatched. As for technique and musicianship, there are few pianists playing today who are in the same league as Aimard. That's probably the reason he can, once he sets his mind to it, play such disparate music as Messiaen's 'Vingt Regards' and Bach's 'Art of Fugue' as stunningly as he does.

If you are wanting a piano version of 'Art of Fugue' and, much as I love Sokolov's version (available, in any event, only in a multi-disc set), if you only want one version this is the one to have.

Scott Morrison

If you cannot live without Bach, you should not live without this recording of the Art of the FUgue by Pierre-Laurent Aimard

Would very much like to write a review on this CD as I always love Aimard's work but the CD was broken during shipment and shall need to send it back for another replacement. May be next time ? :)

UPDATE:
After watching the excellent film Pianomania featuring Pierre Laurent Aimard as he prepared and recorded this very CD, there is no doubt in my mind that this guy is a nutcase who wastes everyone's time. His attitude during the recording was so ridiculous that one wishes this so called perfectionnist to be playing in schools for a year. Perhaps that would teach him a good lesson. Rewarding this egotistical puffed up pianist with hard earned dollars is truly encouraging this maniac. And all this for a interpreter who doesn't know proper Bach articulation! Shame!


Back in October 2007 after Pierre Laurent Aimard recital in Vancouver, I wrote "The latest in that category was Pierre-Laurent Aimard... I regret to add his name to the list because he brings interesting programmes such as Messiaen 8 Preludes which he plays with basic musicality although this superb music could shine under smarter hands. However his playing Bach's Art of the Fugue was truly the most pathetic, clueless, boring and laborious exercise I have witnessed since... Murray Perahia's return to the stage! And guess what? 2008 will see a new release of that Bach monument under this very pianist! Unreal! As for Beethoven Sonata n.31, Aimard displayed a lack of structural and architectonic understanding of the piece, combined with memory lapses and little colors that was painful to hear."

Since then many on other threads have attacked my reviews. Vindication regarding the particular Bach playing came from Norman Lebrecht's recent review of the latest Aimard Gramophon "Art of the Fugue". Here are extracts of his review:

"The French pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard will loom large in our lives in the coming year as director of the South Bank's Messiaen festival and artistic director at Aldeburgh(..). I wish I could warm more to this, his launch project. Aimard is a resourceful and dedicated pioneer of new music who brings a contemporary dimension to the classics he performs. (...) Working from a facsimile of Bach's original manuscript he applies what he describes as `alchemical' insights to the score. That's a daring claim to make and its credibility runs out somewhere around the eighth Contrapunctus when Aimard starts to weary the ear with sameness of weight and lack of colour. Like Glenn Gould, he stops dead in mid-fugue at the last note Bach wrote. Unlike Gould, he adds little to the sum of musical experience."

Of course DG is promoting the CD with a video showing the recording sessions and Aimard "alchemical" or should we say arch-comical insight: this not Bach, it's Offenbach!
His Bach playing lacks structure, articulation and often plays un-period like legatos, dynamic changes etc... Alchemy is not enough with Baroque: knowledge is the key. Lacking the structure makes PLA accentuate his performance with banging on the keyboard. The recorded sound is quite reverberent, a typical trick to mask problems. Flattering quotes of the New York Times and other newspapers are thrown in the mix so one believes it is his Bach playing that elicited them.

On another note, literally, Aimard is featured in the nonetheless excellent film by Ben Niles "Note by Note, the Making of Steinway L1037", a very well filmed documentary on the making of a concert grand. Aimard's selection process of an instrument for a Zankel Hall recital is almost farsical and his pontificating drivel prompts a good laugh! It is regrettable since he has brought such interesting repertoire from Ligeti to Messiaen to the foreground.

I returned this item for an exchange, since many of the pages were printed upside down, on 5/27 after following the directions for a return/replacement. It is now 7/09 and I am still waiting for a replacement. I have written twice to the dealer as well as to Amazon including one yesterday. I am tired of reviewing and would like very much for my son to to begin playing Bach. If anyone who actually reads this is in a position to make that happen!
MB