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American Record Guide: (05/2020) 
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Le Palais des Dégustateurs  
PDD008

 

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Reviewer: Bradley Lehman
 

As he did with Book 1 (M/A 2019), Booth produces a stimulating performance on a harpsichord he designed and built. Along with his booklet essay, his work is a master class presenting new ideas about rhythmic profiles, tempo, and ornamentation. The intonation isn’t completely convincing: I detailed all my practical and historical disagreements about Booth’s “Kirnberger 3” temperament in that review last year.


Book 2 here has the same virtues. He demonstrates a remarkably effective formula for playing Bach on the harpsichord: pick a patient and steady tempo, install a very subtle rhythmic inequality into your brain, and then let the piece play itself out easily with intuitive musicianship. The inequality is so tiny that it can’t be notated, but when other players don’t use it the absence is felt (like making oatmeal but forgetting the dash of salt). The piece must be learned so well that there is no struggle or further manipulation. Booth is a world-class player. I noticed one misread accidental in the B-major fugue, something an independent producer would have caught for correction. That’s the hazard of an ambitious one-man project, even one this brilliantly done: sometimes tiny errors get through. Soundboard CDs (Booth’s label) are available through Raven Recordings (804-355-6386; 3217 Brook Rd, Richmond VA 23227), or from his own web site.


With pianist Dominique Merlet, Book 2 lacks enough interpretive direction. The reading sounds like the variants in the Richard Jones Urtext edition (Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music), derived from Tovey. The playing time is so short because he cuts the repeats in most of the preludes. Merlet follows the pianistic practice of playing fugue subjects a bit louder than the other voices, but they don’t recede much afterward, so the pieces just get louder and louder as they proceed. Other than choosing to use pedal or not, Merlet doesn’t find much variety in the music. His articulations and dynamics don’t reveal surprising details. The delivery is unsteady, too: his left hand comes along for the ride, trying to keep up, instead of leading the music firmly from the bass. The left hand’s tentativeness is especially a problem in the E minor pieces. In the D major and D-sharp minor fugues, all the repeated notes are smeared together with damper pedal—an effect not available on any of Bach’s keyboard instruments. This pianistic technique of harmonic pedaling obscures the counterpoint of other pieces as well. It reduces the musical dimensions. He changed the project producers, sponsors, graphic designers, and annotators between volume 2 (2016) and volume 1 (2017). He kept the same hall and Steinway piano. The annotator’s essay for volume 2 brings out old notions about Bach writing this music for equal temperament, but the essay for volume 1 contradicts that. Volume 2’s booklet wastes a lot of space having the same photographic reproductions of Bach (a portrait and a statue) three times each, and the first page of the St John Passion’s score reproduced twice—irrelevant to this project. He brings to Book 1 a mishmash of ideas from the Carl Czerny edition (many changed notes, an extra measure in Prelude 1, added octaves, long legato phrasing) and Frederic Chopin’s hand-marked copy of parts of it. Some of that Czerny edition is allegedly a record of the way Czerny remembered Beethoven playing the pieces for him. It’s not stated clearly which parts of Merlet’s interpretation are from which source. Where do Chopin’s ideas overrule Czerny’s or Beethoven’s? And why? None of these composers ever played a Steinway D, so we’re on shaky ground historically in this venture. It seems that Merlet was grasping for interpretive ideas, because (as heard in volume 2) he doesn’t bring enough imagination of his own. He includes two separate takes of Fugue 19 in A, to show that it can be interpreted in vastly different ways. One of these efforts is supposed to emphasize a connection to the fugue in Beethoven’s Sonata 31. This idea of radically different readings could have been taken further, instead just this single example. Merlet’s sets are not interesting enough to be recommendable. In both books, it sometimes sounds like a struggle just to keep the notes together accurately—probably not what a collector wants from a recording for years of enjoyment. If Merlet had chosen more consistency with the Czerny reading across both books (for better or worse), it would offer more reason for a purchase. Ashkenazy (S/O 2006), Sheppard (M/J 2008 for Book 1) and Aldwell (1989, not reviewed) are among many who have played the WTC better on piano.

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