I've loved Bach's French Suites for many years, but didn't know the English Suites at all well. I've had Murray Perahia's recording of Nos. 2, 4 and 5, and wasn't in thrall. This week I got his recording of Nos. 1, 3 and 6 and am enchanted. I have to give the first recording another good, hard listen. Took me a long time to fall in love with the Goldbergs, but now they're very close friends. In fact, I realized a couple of months ago that they are the story of a human life -- not necessarily chronological, and certainly not programmatic, but when that ethereal theme returns at the end, you know you have come full circle from birth to the sublimity of death. (I'm not claiming that the process of dying is sublime, but that death itself is.)
No comments:
Post a Comment