(++++) ENDLESSLY ADAPTABLE

Ravel: Piano Concerto in G; Piano Concerto for the Left Hand; Bach/Wittgenstein: Left-Hand arrangements of Prelude, BWV 846/1; Prelude, BWV 999; Gigue, BWV 825/7; Siciliano, BWV 1031/2. Yeol Eum Son, piano; Residentie Orkest The Hague conducted by Anja Bihlmaier. Naïve. $16.99.

Bach: English Suites Nos. 1-6, BWV 806-811. Francesco Tristano, piano. Naïve. $19.99 (2 CDs).

     The answer to so many musical questions always seems to come down to Bach. For her new, very personal Naïve CD featuring Ravel’s two piano concertos, Yeol Eum Son made the highly individualistic decision to fill out the disc with four Bach works intended to complement Ravel’s Piano Concerto for the Left Hand, which was commissioned by Paul Wittgenstein: the four short pieces are left-hand arrangements by Wittgenstein, who famously commissioned Ravel’s concerto. Wittgenstein certainly knew how to compose, or recompose – his tendency to make unauthorized revisions of music written for him is one of the less-savory elements of his biography – but what is interesting here is the way that he gravitated to Bach and that Son does as well. Ultimately this is scarcely surprising: Bach seems in some senses to contain all music, and composers and performers alike see in his works whatever elements of themselves they choose to bring to the table. In the case of Son’s handling of these four Wittgenstein arrangements, the main effect is to make listeners wish the pianist had included more such material, or perhaps some solo piano music by Ravel, to further enhance the experience of the two concertos. There was plenty of room for more: the CD runs only 52 minutes. But given the highly personal nature of this recording, perhaps Son felt that simply dipping into the Bach repertoire from the third volume of Wittgenstein’s School for the Left Hand was enough. Certainly all four pieces heard here are rendered with suitable simplicity and fine technique: the first Prelude from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier; the Prelude, BWV 999; the Gigue that is the seventh movement of Partita No. 1, BWV 825; and the Siciliano second movement of the Sonata for Flute and Harpsichord, BWV 1031. As complements to the Ravel concertos, these Bach arrangements are more flattering than are other elements of the CD’s presentation, which looks a bit too much like a glossy-magazine tribute to Son: there are five photos of Son included, only one of which shows her at the piano; four of them are magazine-style extreme facial closeups, and one of those (which is used twice!) is an “artsy” picture that makes it look as if she is wearing a peculiarly modified burka that leaves only her left eye visible (perhaps a rather silly attempt to portray the “left hand” element of the CD). Thank goodness the music Son performs is so much better than this, as are her performances. The two Ravel concertos – which, after all, take up four-fifths of the disc – are played with quite exceptional sensitivity. The G major work, by far the brighter of the two, is outgoing and at times positively ebullient here, the jazz flavor of its outer movements contrasting strongly with the quietly meditative, thoughtful and rather crepuscular central movement – in which the accompaniment by the Residentie Orkest The Hague under Anja Bihlmaier is particularly sensitive and filled with feeling. The darker left-hand concerto also gets top-notch handling from both soloist and orchestra, the contrasts among its four sections brought out clearly even as the overall unity of Ravel’s conception is explored to very fine effect. These are first-rate concerto performances wrapped in a package with some very interesting Bachian elements that do a great deal to offset the less-than-exemplary physical packaging and presentation of the disc.

     Bach’s role as the ne plus ultra for pianists is scarcely limited to Son and Wittgenstein: a new two-CD Naïve release featuring pianist Francesco Tristano continues the longstanding trend of recording Bach’s keyboard works on instruments for which they were never intended, but on which they can still sound very good if listeners adjust their ears accordingly. The English Suites, like the other Bach works for harpsichord, never sound quite right on piano to audiences aware of historically informed performance practices (including instrumental tuning as well as a performer’s actual playing). But readings like Tristano’s have pleasures of their own if one does not expect them to be something they are not. There is no way to make a modern piano, with its resonance, substantial key travel and underlying struck rather than plucked means of note generation, sound like an instrument of Bach’s time. But a pianist who does not overdo pedal use and does not rely too heavily on the piano’s note-sustaining capabilities can produce a more-than-satisfactory rendition of the English Suites, as Tristano does. The brighter and quicker movements of the suites come across especially well in his performance: the two Bourrée movements of Suite No. 1, for example, skitter across the keyboard attractively and entertainingly. On the other hand, in the same suite’s Sarabande, Tristano shows himself unable to resist the piano’s inherent sustaining capabilities: he ensures that the left-hand chords provide an ongoing aural foundation for the expressiveness of the right-hand thematic material. This makes for emotionally effective but distinctly non-Baroque-sounding playing. This pattern persists throughout Tristano’s performances. There are many elements of these works that are genuinely captivating in their bounce and enthusiasm, such as the Prelude movements of Suites Nos. 2 and 4; but there are others, such as the Prelude of Suite No. 6, that reach out for sensitivity and emotional engagement through sounds that are quite out of keeping with those that are appropriate for Bach’s time and thinking. During the pianistically overdone movements – the Sarabande of Suite No. 3 is a particularly clear example – it helps to listen with an understanding of the many ways in which the universality of Bach’s appeal leads to his music being filtered through the tastes, and instruments, of times well beyond his own. Certainly the sheer panache of Tristano’s way with the Gigue movements is winning, especially when it comes to those of Suites Nos. 2 and 5 (the latter offered with some entrancing puckishness). This goes a good way toward offsetting the somewhat disappointing, because somewhat overdone, handling of most of the slower movements. On balance, this is a very finely managed set of English Suites that listeners will consider a (++++) recording if they particularly enjoy hearing these works on the piano. Even those who prefer the suites on the harpsichord and in more historically accurate renditions will find this a (+++) release in light of the many high points that do a great deal to counterbalance the somewhat less convincing portions of Tristano’s interpretations.