A veteran Bach specialist continues his Bach odyssey on Brilliant Classics with a new recording of the English Suites.
Previous volumes in this series have met with wide critical acclaim. Of the French Suites, Jed Distler wrote in Classics Today: ‘a splendid new recording… these lovely performances memorably showcase Rübsam’s sensitive and poetic side.’ While Rübsam has been playing and recording Bach’s music for over half a century, he brings a fresh perspective, both to the works themselves and his approach to them, by performing on a lute-harpsichord, known in German as a lautenwerk.
Of the complete Well-Tempered Clavier, the Gramophone reviewer remarked: ‘Like his other Bach recordings using the Lautenwerk, including the French Suites, the so-called Lute Suites and beautiful arrangements of the Cello Suites and Violin Sonatas and Partitas, these are revelatory… one thing’s for certain: you’ll never listen to any of Bach’s music in the same way again.’
Bach himself owned a pair of Lautenwerk, and so Rübsam is returning this music to the scale on which it was conceived: more intimate than nearly all the competition on record, perfectly suited to close studio recording and domestic listening. The Suites themselves are hardly English in character (Bach probably wrote them for an English patron) but rather French, more developed in scale and expression than the earlier French Suites, especially in the Third and Sixth of the set.
Movements such as the Overture to No.2 and the Sarabande of No.3 have inspired some of the greatest keyboard musicians – on various instruments – to sound the depths of their artistry. Wolfgang Rübsam does so here, yet with a humility that draws the ear back to Bach himself, to the wondrous intricacy of his polyphony, and his particular genius for embodying the character of a dance through the natural shape of his melodies.
The complete 6 English Suites by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), played on the lute-harpsichord by Wolfgang Rübsam.
There is little “English” about these suites. Their name might have been given as a tribute to Charles Diepart, whose 6 English Suites were very popular at the time. Bach’s English Suites follow the traditional sequence of dance movements of the Suite. The writing is mature and technically demanding. The English Suites, along with the French Suites and Partitas, are part of the standard keyboard repertoire.
Wolfgang Rübsam is internationally known as an authoritative Bach interpreter, from recordings of the organ and harpsichord on several different labels. This new recording is played on a lute-harpsichord, an instrument that Bach would have had at home for both music-making in the family and for teaching. The touch required and the sonority produced is delicate, subtly shaded and closely related in its effect to the music of Bach’s French contemporaries, whose music he knew well, such as François Couperin, Jean-Philippe Rameau and Louis Marchand. The sound is warmer, as it has gut strings and no dampers.
“These lovely performances memorably showcase Rübsam’s sensitive and poetic side. Recommended. Performance: 9” wrote Jed Distler of Classicstoday.com about the earlier issue of Rübsam’s recording of Bach’s French Suites (BC 96227).
