Pizzicato: J. S. Bach: Solo Cello Suites
This new recording of Bach’s cello suites with the now seventy-two-year-old Hungarian cellist Miklos Perenyi will polarise and probably divide the listeners into two camps.
One camp will describe Perenyi’s second recording as rustic, coarse, unemotional and ugly – in fact we are light-years away from the meditative beauty of a Yo Yo Ma, the intensity of a Casals, the superiority of a Tortelier or the symphonic vision of a Rostropovich. The other camp will praise Perenyi’s courage for this unusual performance which is repeatedly stalling the musical flow with accents and surprises with a deliberately ‘ugly’ intonation. The dancing element is always present, but the grotesque contortions are more reminiscent of Mahler’s garish handling of dances than of noble minuets at court.
Perenyi’s Bach is challenging because of the lack of emotional beauty and the ignoring of nuances, the renunciation of a normal feeling for style and a fluid playing.
Perenyi’s Bach cannot be categorized, his interpretation is very idiosyncratic and distances itself just as much from classical interpretation as from historically informed performance practice. This Bach does not want to please, but to deliberately irritate. One likes it or one dislikes it. For my part, I enjoyed Perenyi’s excursion into the cabinet of curiosities very much. And this, although I do not ‘like’ this Bach at all… . But it is ingenious!
Remy Franck
Source: Pizzicato