Customer Reviews

Trio Sonatas

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

 

 

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685 - 1750): Trio Sonatas for Recorder, Violin and Basso Continuo. Arranged by Judith Linsenberg from the Trio Sonatas for Organ BWV 525 - 530. Performed by Musica Pacifica: Judith Linsenberg, alto recorder and voice flute; Elizabeth Blumenstock, violin; Elisabeth Le Guin, violoncello; Edward Parmentier, harpsichord.
Recorded at Pony Tracks Ranch, Portola Valley, California from 11th to 14th May, 1992.
Sponsored by the American Recorder Society and a number of private donors.
Released in 1996 on Virgin Classics 7243 5 45192 2 2.

Even today, after so many years of "historically informed performance practice", one occasionally still hears the complaint that musicians who have devoted themselves to playing early music on period instruments produce "museum sound"; others accuse them of being "slavishly bound" to the original. There could scarcely be better proof of what utter nonsense some people write than the CD of Bach's Trio Sonatas by Musica Pacifica. Bach conceived this music for a solo organist playing the two melody parts on two manuals and the basso continuo with his feet on the pedals. Realizing that Bach himself, however, was fond of rewriting his own music for various other combinations of instruments (and that he had, in fact, done so with one of the movements from this set of six sonatas), Judith Linsenberg set herself the task of converting them into sonatas for recorder (her own instrument), violin and continuo. Then, having done that, Musica Pacifica went about playing them with an ease and gaiety that caused the editor of a German-language Early Music magazine to speak of "roguish playfulness" and the "lightness of [Californian] being" and to award the recording his "Disc of the Month" status ("Alte Musik aktuell", September 1996).

Assuming that transcription is a legitimate means of transporting musical thought across the centuries, then this must be categorized as a highly successful and entertaining disc, and one that surely makes the structures of Bach's music much more transparent than they would be if the music were played on an organ. This is really "pretty" baroque music, comparable only with the very best of Telemann. If there is to be any criticism, it would perhaps be that during the recording sessions Judith Linsenberg appears to have been standing some way in front of the other players, thus slightly disadvantaging Elizabeth Blumenstock with her lovely violin tone.

I first heard this CD as part of a compilation given out as a sound library of instruments made by a recorder maker. I really like the slow movement of Sonata No 1. In my mind it rivals the slow movemennt of Bach's double violin concerto for beauty of musical line. It is one gorgeous piece of music. The melody twines back and forth between the recorder and violin seamlessly.
I had to get the CD even if it took me two ears!
Thankyou Amazon and Arkive Music.