Customer Reviews

Händel: Suites for Keyboard

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Jarrett's recording of seven attractive Handel suites is, well, just delicious. His pianism, always at the service of the composer, is consistently lyrical, never rushed or hectic, with textures warm and rich. Each suite holds its own bounty, all of which Jarrett mines to the fullest. The pianist's jazz background complements the music, imbues it with a depth and humanity rarely found, especially in baroque keyboard. As well, it's more than apparent that Jarrett has made a conscious effort to get completely "inside" the composer, completely "inside" the music. He has succeeded incredibly well.

Sample, for instance, his swirling, beautifully wrought playing of the opening Prelude from Suite 1, No. 1 (HWV 426), the purity of the following Allemande, and the yearning wistfulness of the Courante. Or feel the breathtaking melancholy of the opening Adagio of Suite 1, No. 2 (HWV 427). And the particular beauty Jarrett imparts to the Prelude-Fuga of Suite 1, No. 8 (HWV 433) is absolutely not to be missed. This is playing of such tenderness and honesty that it silences criticism, pays homage to Handel and offers us the most unusual kind of musical blessing.

[Running time: 74:31]

This is a terrific disc, well-filled(74 minutes), well recorded and wonderfully played. I am particularly grateful that Mr. Jarrett chose to use his piano, rather than the harpsichord he has been accustomed to use on his other baroque recordings. It is much more expressive. Only the piano could really bring out the warm-heartedness of many of the Handel melodies recorded here, as well as the power of some of the fugues. This disc is one of a kind and certainly worth keeping!

This CD is wonderful because I have never heard Haendel played like this - Baroque meets the Koeln concert. Without depriving Haendel's music of its period appeal, Jarrett is able to infuse it with his absolutely unique keyboard style. Furthermore the pieces fit together so well that they seem to form a natural melodic progression that the listener soon wants to continue forever. A wonderful set of music!

This disc proves once again beyond a shadow of a doubt that Keith Jarrett could have had a sensational career as a classical pianist. When one listens to the vast amount of bilge that is served up by would-be classical pianists, one appreciates all the more the versatility and depth of Jarrett and his musicianship. His Bach is superb, his Shostakovich is even better, and his Handel is in a class by itself. It equals Richter's. Bravo.

Last week I took on the monumental task of sorting my CDs. The case for Keith Jarret's take on Handel's Piano Suites was empty! "It'll show up sooner or later", I told myself, but secretly I panicked, for every few weeks I have to have my Handel/Jarrett fix. I was stunned the first time I heard Jarrett's great jazz concert from Koln decades ago and thought that Jarrett was surely a mystic at heart since his solo improvisions are like very personal meditations transposed directly to his medium. So when I heard he was coming out with this disc in 1995 I rushed to get it. How I love this collection...I was thrilled not only at a new Handel keyboard performance, but at its quality. Tender but disciplined, clear almost transparent playing, yet sharp and technically clean. When I found it today in a case with Rachel Podger's recording of Bach's Solo Violin Sonatas and Partitas (also a brilliant recording by the way - she plays the baroque violin with a passion that is unique to her), I was elalted and thought that if I thought so much of this recording I should put my mouth where my money was. Jarrett/Handel...made for each other.

Keith Jarrett's deft and sensitive hand brings Handel's keyboard music to life in a way that will make late Baroque fans drop whatever else they are doing and just let the music flow over them. The music just flows out of the speakers and over the listener in an uninterupted stream. This is superb stuff. Jarrett's sensitive interpretations take the mathematical precision of baroque and interprets it with a touch of the romantic era that follows the classical period just over the horizon. Yet, Jarrett remains true to the baroque idiom. The recording is clean and crisp, even on a high-quality stereo system.

This is one of my favorite CDs. In fact, I think I'll slip it into the disk drive.

There is no need to belabour the excellences of Keith Jarrett's performances of Handel's keyboard suites. The playing has the lyrical flow that other Amazon.com and Amazon.ca reviewers almost unanimously praise so lavishly and so rightly; even when Jarrett choses at times to play somewhat détaché, he never pokes, bangs, or thumps, as so many other keyboard players tend (whether on the piano or the harpsichord) to do. The phrasing of the music is so beautifully delineated that one simply would have to look long and far, indeed, to find the equal!

The way that Jarrett plays the suites in E minor and in A major alone would be worth the price of this disc, but the entire CD is a delight from beginning to end. However, in the other suites, there occasionally is all of that gentle reflectiveness that characterises his playing, in his own improvisational music and in classical repertoire alike, at the expense of the spritelier movements' humour and dash, the tempi at times just a tad too slow to maximise the brio of such sections, but all is forgiven for the sheer musicality and utter lack of pedantry of what one has to endure elsewhere in the performances of "early music specilists" or of some aggressive thwackers of Baroque keyboard music (especially in the music of Handel's contemporary, J.S. Bach) such as Weissenberg and (too much of the time) Gould.

The fugues in these suites simply surpass what praise can heap upon them. The fugue in the suite in E minor would be one of my prime choices to students of keyboard playing of how to execute a fugue or other work in strict counterpoint, with clarity and stylishness but also with a lyrical impetus that one seldom finds (usually, as others play, the impetus being at the expense of lyricism, or the lyricism at the expense of rhythmic articulation and forward motion) in players who fall short of Jarrett's combination of sensibility, elegance, taste, and sheer technical aplomb.

Well, one need not go further; read the other laudatory reviews and rest assured that the praise of the listeners who wrote them is utterly justified. Do not let any snide and crabbed musicologist or envious keyboard-tweaking "specialist" lure you with the inevitable and unjustifiedly negative comments of such unmusical riff-raff into underestimating the beauty, elegant style combined with expressivity, and the virtuosity that Keith Jarrett brings totally and so surpassingly well to the service of what the music as Handel conceived it was meant to convey and as Jarrett does so in these recorded performances of Handel's suites.

Keith Jarrett reminds and illustrates with this CD how much Johann Sebastian Bach was influenced by Friedrich Handel. Keith Jarrett is able to capture the richness and mathematical perfection in this pieces as Glenn Gould is able to capture them for instance in Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations. I was surpiresed that Jarrett with his Jazz background was able to play this pieces in such a neio classical clarity. I actally expected the CD to have a Jazz influence like we have with Jaques Loussier when he plays pieces of Bach. As already mentioned, the pieces illustrate, how much Johann Sebastian Bach's music and clarity was influenced and inspired by Friedrich Handel. Keith Keith Jarrett proved to me that he is a great Pianist and this CD should earn him the appropiate respect which he deserves.

This reviewer agrees with all the postive comments made previously in this column. Jarrett makes the case in two areas, first, he askes at the end of his introduction that he hopes this recording can do some good in the direction of allowing the composer's keyboard works to occupy a higher position in our awareness. Jarrett has done this by his thoughtful introduction as well as his thoughtful playing. Jarrett also makes the case for himself occupying an increasingly deserved place among classical pianists.

This is Baroque music at its finest (if on a "modern" instrument). This is solo classical music at its finest (even if it is by a jazz man!). There are a few other classical recordings by this jazz artist. I am hopeful there will be many more.

When Keith Jarrett meets George Frederic Handel here, the result is quite special. Handel, unarguably one of the finest composers would be proud many years after he has passed on another master arrives to do credit to his compositions. Keith Jarret is a master of the keyboard. Regular listeners would be familiar with Jarret's creativity and innovative improvisations at Paris and Koln. Here Jarret is not improvising, rather interpreting a series of Handel's classics. If you want time out, time to reflect, time to be pensive, or just some reliable background piano music, then immerse yourself in this CD for an hour. I'm confident you will appreciate that time and return refreshed.