Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Bach - A Musical Offering - Flute Sonatas - MAK, Goebel (FLAC)




Bach - A Musical Offering - Flute Sonatas - MAK, Goebel (FLAC)
Baroque | Eac, flac, cue | log, covers | 1 CD, 367 MB
September 13, 2000 | Eloquence | FileFactory

A warm welcome back to the catalog for Reinhard Goebel's insightful, scrupulously well-played account of Bach's Musical Offering. This was among Goebel's first recordings (1979) to attract global enthusiasm from the critics, at a time when the use of period instruments in Bach was by no means so well established nor so unquestioningly accepted as is the case today. The work is intelligently coupled with the sonatas in E-flat BWV 1031 and E major BWV 1035 for flute and continuo.

The great strength in Goebel's performance is that he allows you to hear every strand of the music through very careful balancing of instrumental forces. This is where Goebel scores highest over most of his rivals, though I'd also recommend the Harmonia Mundi version from the Kuijkens as a fine alternative, though its recorded sound lacks the clarity and focus of the DG Archiv masters. Take the Canon for two unison violins and continuo (track 3), where you can clearly follow the interplay between Charles Medlam's gamba and the harpsichord realizations of Henk Bouman, even in the succeeding sections in contrary motion (track 4) and augmentation (track 5). A favorite track of mine is the perpetual canon (track 8) for flute, violin, and bass gamba. And how wonderfully pointed and alert is Goebel's solo playing here; again, the truly democratic character of the instrumental dialogue allows you to follow the contrapuntal and polyphonic mastery of Bach's writing with complete ease.

I'd rank this as certainly your best choice if you're happy to read up on the work elsewhere, as some fairly detailed commentary on the work is essential. The lack of any here is disadvantageous, but you can't have everything at bargain price, and besides, the performance here leaves absolutely nothing unsaid. Lastly, Webern's orchestration of the Ricercar casts fresh perspectives on Bach's original, so Christoph von Dohnanyi's Decca coupling with Bruckner's 8th symphony makes an intriguing companion disc to Goebel's benchmark account of the definitive version.--Michael Jameson


Track list

Ricercar a 3 (harpsichord)
Canon perpetuus a 2 (violin 1/2)
Canon a 2 violini in unisono (violin 1/2, viola da Gamba, Cembalo)
Canon a 2 per motum contrarium (flute, violin 1/2)
Canon a 2 per augmentationem, contrario motu (violin 1/2, viola da gamba)
Canon a 2 per tonos (violin, harpsichord)
Fuga canonica in epidiapente (flute, violin, harpsichord)
Canon perpetuus super thema regium (flute, violin, viola da gamba)
Canon perpetuus (flute, violin, viola da gamba, harpsichord)
Canon a 2 (harpsichord)
Canona a 4 (violin 1/2, harpsichord)
Largo; Sonata a 3 (flute, violin, viola da gamba)
Allegro; Sonata a 3 (flute, violin, viola da gamba)
Andante; Sonata a 3 (flute, violin, viola da gamba)
Allegro; Sonata a 3 (flute, violin, viola da gamba)
Ricercar a 6 (harpsichord)
Allegro moderato; Sonata No.2 in E flat major, BWV 1031 for Flute and Harpsichord
Siciliano; Sonata No.2 in E flat major, BWV 1031 for Flute and Harpsichord
Allegro; Sonata No.2 in E flat major, BWV 1031 for Flute and Harpsichord
Adagio ma non tanto; Sonata No.3 in E major, BWV 1035 for Flute and Basso continuo
Allegro; Sonata No.3 in E major, BWV 1035 for Flute and Basso continuo
Siciliano; Sonata No.3 in E major, BWV 1035 for Flute and Basso continuo
Allegro assai; Sonata No.3 in E major, BWV 1035 for Flute and Basso continuo

6 comments:

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  3. Thank you for all your superb posts and the intelligent commentary, Otto!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Dear Rho, I wish my blog is one day as good as yours :-)

    All the best
    otto

    ReplyDelete
  5. Dear Otto, you're a gentleman to say so :-) I'm sure yours will be far better, you've got such a cultured selection. Mine is mostly just a little green island of Well-tempered clavier obsession... :-)

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  6. Thank you very much for this fine performance!

    ReplyDelete

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