Outil de traduction (Très approximatif)
Translator tool (Very approximate)
Reviewer:
Nalen Anthoni
Should it
always be a viola da gamba of six or seven gut and metal wound strings, tuned in
fourths – a third in the middle – played with bow held underhand, neck wrapped
in adjustable frets, no end-pin? Or a Baroque cello of four gut strings tuned in
fifths, played with convex bow conventionally held, unfretted neck, no end-pin?
Perhaps a difference in timbre between the two instruments might then have not
been conspicuous; but here there’s a brighter than expected edge to Tatty Theo’s
tone. Has she substituted metal strings? Whatever, there is a close match
between cello and a harpsichord of cutting transients which fits the
businesslike virtuosity of much of the playing. Choice of tempi cannot be
faulted and rhythm is exact; too often very exact, especially for the kernel of
slow movements to be revealed. Johann Mattheson, a contemporary of Bach, speaks
of ‘the tenderness of adagios’ while believing that ‘a highly articulated style,
especially in lyrical pieces, has little or no flowing quality and is to be
avoided’. Absence of pliability from Theo and Carolyn Gibley, not only in the
slow movements but in the fast ones too, is a flaw that devalues their
performances of Bach père et fils. A difference rests in the interpretations of
Jordi Savall (viola da gamba) and Ton Koopman, for whom the absence of dynamic
and expressive markings is not a restriction but a spur to uncovering the
dramatic shapes of these sonatas through their varying moods.
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