(++++) THINKING AND RETHINKING

Bach: Cello Suites Nos. 1-3, arranged for viola. Zachary Carrettín, viola. Sono Luminus. $16.50.

Beethoven: Bagatelles, Op. 126; works by Peter Golub, Tamir Hendelman, Richard Danielpour, Ian Krouse, Mark Carlson, David Lefkowitz, Paola Prestini, Timo Andres, and Billy Childs. Inna Faliks, piano. Navona. $14.99.

     There is nothing unusual about playing Bach’s Cello Suites on an instrument other than the cello: among many recent arrangements have been ones for theorbo, lute, flute, even bass clarinet. In fact, Zachary Carrettín has played the suites on electric violin. Performing the suites on viola – an instrument tuned the same way as the cello, but an octave higher – seems so obvious an alternative that the new Sono Luminus release featuring Carrettín would seem to be something of a no-brainer. But it turns out to be the opposite: a performance that is very thoughtful indeed, and that makes a strong case for the first three suites in Carrettín’s version – whetting listeners’ appetite for the remaining three, perhaps also on viola or perhaps on the violoncello da spalla, which Carrettín also plays. What is interesting about this viola version of the first three suites is how carefully Carrettín seeks authenticity despite not playing the music on Bach’s chosen instrument. The gut stringing, 18^th-century viola and suitable bow, along with the performer’s thorough familiarity with historically informed performance practices, combine to produce a sound with which Bach would have been familiar – yet one that audiences comfortable with the suites as originally written will likely find surprising and often revelatory. The viola allows the music to sing and dance in ways that are different from (and complementary to) those of the cello: the music is lighter, the agility it requires coming across to the ear (if not necessarily to the performer) as easier and almost carefree in places. Carrettín still offers plenty of solemnity: the three Sarabande movements are quite heartfelt, and the entire second suite (in D minor) has a persistent thoughtfulness, combined with frequent touches of melancholy, that contrasts strikingly with the moods of No. 1 (in G) and No. 3 (in C). Carrettín has an unerring sense of when to be forceful and when to be formal, and the care he takes in pacing individual movements as well as each suite in its totality is noteworthy (so to speak). The CD bears the title “Metamorphosis” and, in Carrettín’s mind, some philosophical freight therewith – beyond the obvious notion of the suites being changed through viola rather than cello performance. What is particularly interesting here, though, is how little the underlying effects and expressiveness of the suites are altered when Carrettín plays them on this smaller, more-supple instrument: the works’ depth and beauty are unmatched when they are heard on cello, but their brighter elements are particularly well highlighted here, resulting in a disc that cannot supplant the many fine cello versions of the music but that supplements and complements them to excellent effect.

     A new Navona CD featuring pianist Inna Faliks also offers an interesting approach to some significant music. But while Carrettín’s Bach-on-viola remains focused on the composer, the attention in Faliks’ disc shifts toward the performer – a more-arguable approach. Faliks performs the six Bagatelles, Op. 126 that Beethoven conceived of as essentially a single work (calling this opus Ciclus von Kleinigkeiten, “cycle of little pieces”) as six separate character pieces, interspersing them with new, written-for-Faliks-herself music by contemporary composers. The idea is to take the Beethoven as a jumping-off point for musings of all sorts, resulting in 12 pieces rather than six and in a fragmentation of the underlying unity that Beethoven saw in these small, thoughtful works. The result of all this is a disc that is intellectually stimulating – and certainly played very well – but is less than convincing emotionally, and considerably less so than Beethoven’s Op. 126 on its own. The disc opens not with Beethoven’s first bagatelle but with Bagatelle by Peter Golub (born 1952), which is based on that first Beethoven piece – which listeners have not heard yet. This is typical of the intellectualization of the music throughout the disc: listeners are expected already to know the Beethoven material or to place it at the same level of interest as the music that comments on or is inspired by it. The other pieces related to the Beethoven are Bagatelle by Tamir Hendelman (born 1971), Bagatelle—Childhood Nightmare by Richard Danielpour (born 1956), Etude 2A—‘Ad Fugam’ on a Non-Octave-Replicating Mode by Ian Krouse (born 1956), Sweet Nothings by Mark Carlson (born 1952), and Bagatelle by David Lefkowitz (born 1964). All the works are well-made, although not all bear much relation to the pieces on which they are more-or-less based (Danielpour’s and Krouse’s, in particular, occupy their own worlds). Faliks shows her enthusiasm for all the contemporary works quite clearly – sometimes more clearly than her interest in the Beethoven – and the 12-piece set is certainly an interesting exercise on several levels, even if it is not wholly convincing from an emotive standpoint. All six non-Beethoven pieces here are world première recordings; the same is true of three additional works that are also variations on or responses to a different significant piano work. These are Ondine: Variations on a Spell by Paola Prestini (born 1975), Le Gibet: Old Ground by Timo Andres (born 1985), and Scarbo: Pursuit by Billy Childs (born 1957). These pieces, as their titles indicate, take off from Ravel’s Gaspard de la Nuit – which, however, is not played here by Faliks, meaning these works require of listeners an even greater pre-knowledge of their inspirational material than do the Beethoven-related pieces. Each of the three “Ravelian” works refers at least obliquely to the original to which it responds, and each is effective in its own way, that by Childs especially so. The Ravel material cements this recording as one with (++++) playing and (++++) underlying thoughtfulness, even though the disc is a self-limiting (+++) one – because it is simply too rarefied for a wide audience, engaging more of the brain and less of the heart than Beethoven and Ravel did in the works on which Faliks’ recital is based.