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JS "Bach 333" complete box set from Decca/DGG coming out

 

I always wonder who these massive sets are for. Bach fans will already have most of the music in their collections. A Bach beginner is unlikely to want to make such an expensive investment that will involve months of committed listening.

 

I think the big sets most attract those who are completists and love a very low price per disc.

I did forget to name the big one - Acquisition Addicts.

 

I never added the tantalizing big box set Bach 333 to my collection, though I lusted after it. Still, I already had two big "Complete Bach" sets (the one from Brilliant Classics and the one from Master Music/Hänssler Verlag):

The Brilliant Classics box consists of 160 discs, the MM//Hänssler set of 171 discs. As well, I have several complete box sets of the Cantatas (including those recordings in the Bach 333), at least two dozen different versions of the Brandenburgs and the Goldberg, and so much much more Bach. As the master himself may have said: Ich habe Genug.

Still, one can never have enough Bach (or so whispers a taunting voice deep within my conscience). Which perhaps explains why so many Bach recordings exists, and why we who love this music are always curious to hear a piece we haven't known previously. (I wish I could never run out of hearing new music by Bach.)

Interestingly, the Bach 333 collection is named for the 333rd anniversary of Bach's birth. It consists of a mere 222 discs. Yet, it's rather impressive nonetheless.

And as I drool over this set, even though I've convinced myself I do not need it, I continue to hear the strains of Bach's Cantata BWV 82 in my head, in which that so profound and lofty refrain, "Ich habe genug", sounds suddenly less than compelling. Alas....

 

I am nearly 70 years of age and have spent an adult lifetime buying, selling, listening to, trading and giving away classical recordings and I could never justify buying a set like Bach 333 for several reasons.

The first is, even though I love much of Bach's music and have many recordings, I would never listen to all those recordings. I don't know how many fans there are of his trio sonatas or all the organ music but I am not one, nor am I a fan of the Goldberg variations, the passions outside Matthew's, the B minor mass or much of his other keyboard solo music. Recordings of this music would be wasted in my home. I also would never listen to all the cantatas. He wrote, what, 200 of them? Are there people out there so in love with Bach they would listen to all this at home … repeatedly?

The second is the idea of buying a recording is that you have it at home for posterity so you can hear it anytime you want regardless if it is ever played on the radio or in concert. This is why we buy recordings isn't it? If we just want to sample or hear it once there are other ways of doing that. So buying several hundred recordings knowing you'll never listen to at least half or maybe two-thirds defeats this concept, doesn't it?

The third, and most important reason to me, is the quality issue. I just don't believe it possible that I could buy a set of any composer's total output and find most of it performed or sounding at a quality I would find universally enjoyable. This is most of the reason I never buy complete sets of anything. For example, I have never found a complete set of J.S. Bach six keyboard partitas on the piano that I ever thought good enough to keep, so I quit trying. I own all six but not by the same performer. The same is true for the symphonies of anyone. I did once find a set of Mozart's wind concertos I liked well enough to keep for posterity but that's only 3 CDs.

So the idea of buying a set of 200 or 300 discs of a single composer's music seems absurd to me, a complete waste of money regardless of price.

 

For example, I have never found a complete set of J.S. Bach six keyboard partitas on the piano that I ever thought good enough to keep, so I quit trying. I own all six but not by the same performer.

Of course I do not know, how you prefer these partitas played, but maybe the problem is the piano.

However have you heard Virginia Black and Wolfgang Rübsam.

 

It's quite a lovely box, and very well curated. Clearly a great deal of thought went into its production. I'm ripping and listening as I go and quite enjoying it (though as always in these complete Bach boxes, the chorales are a horrific slog) as I read through the accompanying books. The cantatas are not from a single artist, but taking the best from Gardiner, Suzuki, Rifkin, McCreesh, Koopman and others, so if you find an artist you like you can hunt down more from them. It's a clever way to proceed at least with the cantatas. The same plan apparently is in the works for the Beethoven symphonies in the forthcoming Beethoven 250 box, and I'm less convinced there.

While I'm finding some duplication, I'm also surprised consistently by how much I didn't have already.

 

Were you able to get all the cds ripped? I am asking just to make sure that there are some computer disc drives that can read those extra lengthy discs.

 

Bach partitas ... have you heard Virginia Black and Wolfgang Rübsam.

No to Black, yes to Rubsam who to me has the most annoying rubato. I prefer Igor Kipnis on harpsichord, a wonderful set.

 

I agree re: Rübsam. Liked it at first, cant stand it now. Especially his Goldberg Variations, which does have the benefit of a beautiful sounding instrument (a lute-harpsichord from the period).

 

Even if one doesn't buy, the collection of 333 discs is a tribute to Bach’s genius and his astonishing productivity. It truly boggles the mind, and he was raising an enormous family too. I’ve never heard anything by him that wasn’t of the highest possible standard, never anything close to being inept or bad, and he was influential on many other composers who came after him, including Mozart and Chopin. I can easily imagine one person who would buy this collection if he could: Bach himself! Imagine the opportunity to hear virtually everything you wrote throughout your entire lifetime through some type of a magic sound system that wouldn’t even require live musicians. What a trip that would have been for one of the true immortals who gave so much to his family, his community, and the world., not only as a great composer but as a teacher.

 

Rübsam turns each Goldberg variation into an instrumental madrigal, no one has tried that before as far as I know, not even Richard Egarr or Sergio Vartolo have such independent voices.

My biggest reservation about the performance isn’t the rubato, nor the tempo (no need to listen to the whole thing at once.) It’s that he didn’t chose a tuning which would have made for more crunchy chords. After all, if we’re going to have madrigals, let’s have Neapolitan ones!

 

Rübsam turns each Goldberg variation into an instrumental madrigal, no one has tried that before as far as I know, not even Richard Egarr or Sergio Vartolo have such independent voices.

My biggest reservation about the performance isn't the rubato, nor the tempo (no need to listen to the whole thing at once.) It's that he didn't chose a tuning which would have made for more crunchy chords. After all, if we're going to have madrigals, let's have Neapolitan ones!

He plays it the way Alfred Cortot might have played Chopin on a harpsichord. Can't say his experiment does much for me.

Re: Tempi, I find the Goldberg Variations much more enjoyable when listened to all at once. Individual variations seldom do much for me. Not sure whether or not it was Bach's intention to play it straight through, but it works extremely well as a sequence.

 

Listening again to variation 14. You're right that this one is pretty good. I don't know, I just don't think Rübsam's interpretation is for me. Call me old-fashioned, but give me Gustav Leonhardt (or Glenn Gould) any day of the week.

 

This sort of thing - this music is great to listen too while eating a melon.

You know the Turkish proverb about a melon?

I know what you're saying with Cortot and Chopin, I knew that's what you meant. But my question was asking why rubato and staggered voices is OK in Chopin and not in Bach. Here's Cortot playing Bach, it's rather beautiful I think. I mean it's using a piano and some piano effects. But my question is, in terms of rhythm and articulation and touch, is there anything we now know is incompatible with an authentic Bachian approach to keyboard music?

 

I agree that that Cortot is a beautiful performance, but it's not exactly what we'd call historically-informed, is it? Rübsam's manifesto included with the disc (and in his Youtube comments :lol goes on to disparage such performers as Glenn Gould for departing from Bach's intentions, with the presumption that his is the "right" way. I don't agree with that. Moreover, I think his cantabile approach combined with the timbre of his instrument is just grating to my ears. Cortot's interpretation works a lot better and I think his piano is partly to credit.

To be perfectly clear, it's not that I don't think it's OK to play Bach like this, or that I think it's wrong (personally, I couldn't care less about anachronism in music) – it's just not a pleasing sound to my ears. Too bad, too, as when I first heard Rübsam's recording, I was intrigued, went out and bought the CD, only to become disappointed later on.

I'll have to check out that madrigal in a little bit, thanks.

 

Rubsam’s presumption isn’t so much that his way is the only right way, though he may think something like that, it’s that we know enough about attitudes to articulation, tempo etc to be sure that the inexpressive motoric way is just not what the composer meant.

 

Rubsam's presumption isn't so much that his way is the only right way, though he may think something like that, it's that we know enough about attitudes to articulation, tempo etc to be sure that the inexpressive motoric way is just not what the composer meant.

I think it's unfair to describe Glenn Gould as inexpressive and motoric. Maybe I'm crazy, but I think Gould's 1955 Goldberg Variations is intensely expressive. Of course, it's all there in the music itself. You can play it straight and skip the repeats and the deep power and feeling of the music still comes across. Of course, you're probably right that this is definitely not what the composer intended, but I don't think Rübsam's approach is any closer!

 

Johann Sebastian Bach(31 March 1685 - 28 July 1750)