"Upon the Swiss label Prospero comes a new release of Bach on piano.
The word “rare” is an interesting choice for the title of this album, one connoting undercooked meat or another describing something available in limited supply. The recital presented here is perhaps better described as “minor works” or “young works” by Bach, or, possibly, by others, most notably Reincken and Müthel. Rare connotes something valuable rather than speaking more to the truth, that at least some of these pieces are marginalia in the context of Bach’s stature. They are worthy of recording, however, but I’m not sure I’m wholly convinced at Tropea’s approach. Despite showcasing clear talent, his effort is held back by a less than sympathetic recording.
Tropea is a pianist and performs here on a modern instrument. He plays with a lot of dynamic freedom. Notwithstanding, I’d have liked to hear him playing in the way he does on a harpsichord, because I think his articulation style might work well on an instrument that plucks rather than hammers.
He’s a highly technical pianist, as can be witnessed in the Fugue from BWV 964, an arrangement of Bach’s violin sonata, BWV 1003. Tropea sounds most comfortable and is most laudable with the faster movements on this recording. The transcription of Bach’s work for violin is clearly the most familiar work on the album and is among the most successful of those with multiple movements.
Less successful for me was the performance of BWV 966. The opening seemed to lack direction. The dynamic variation in the Allemande was unnecessary, I thought; and the meandering in the Adagio was harder to follow. Tropea shines with faster movements, with its more assured evenness of pulse. The fugue that ends the C major sonata is delightfully joyous!
The piece I was unfamiliar with was BWV 963, a sonata after the imitation of the “Gallina cuccu.” The bird theme seems to be best highlighted in the final movement which benefits from Tropea’s gifts with articulation and speed. I could not find a lot of information about this piece, interestingly. Google, for one, is dead set on leading me back to references to this recording. It is an unusual piece, for sure, and one, if by Bach, speaks to its possible composition at a young age. One aspect missing from Tropea’s toolkit is the application of any improvisatory application of ornaments, which in the slower movements, I would think may have made the lines more interesting.
The opening work, a single movement ‘sonata’ BWV 967 gets strong attention in the right hand. It too is an early work, probably dating from 1705 according to some sources, an exploratory experiment by Bach that paved the way to his preludes in the WTC according to the Nethelands Bach Society. This rendition on harpsichord is a great contrast to the recording by Tropea, especially in the way that a piano can almost re-orchestrate the piece with dominance with the right hand’s melodic material.
In terms of the recording’s sound, I was very disappointed. I do realize that young artists today may be responsible for their own recording and its cost and so I do not want to hold this against Tropea; that said it’s annoying given that there is a lot of admire in the details which get sidelined with the way this album was recorded. However it was captured, the lower timbre of the piano seems filtered off, lending more voice and brightness to the instrument’s upper register. The distance the microphones were placed away from the instrument make it sound as if the recording was made around the corner, behind a wall from where Tropea was playing. As far as piano recordings go, it’s very disappointing. There is a lot of nuance lost in Tropea’s playing with so many notes smeared together. The effect is magnified in Tropea’s performance of the Presto, BWV 970, a highly technical piece with the alliteration of the same notes. His choice to make certain notes stick out dynamically is an interesting effect, but again, it’s somewhat diminished in the way his instrument was captured. The big run at the end of BWV 967, too, is nearly ruined by this acoustic.
This album appears to be an introductory recital for this pianist who has demonstrated some profound gifts. Recording lesser known works by a major keyboard composer was probably a smart angle to get noticed. I think I would have enjoyed this album more had it been recorded differently, with a drier acoustic and closer microphone placement. In terms of Tropea’s style, I am not fully convinced of his treatment of the music in some of the slower movements, where less emphasis should be placed on the sustaining power of the modern piano and where the use of ornaments would have extended the sound on an instrument such as a clavichord or harpsichord. Some of his dynamic contrasts don’t come from historical practice but that shouldn’t matter when you move to the modern piano. Him taking these liberties are what make performances on piano fun.
Despite the disappointment with the character of how this album sounds, it clearly enough captures the unique voice of a new artist who has something to say. I’d encourage the artist to continue to infuse his own voice and dynamic shading into his performance of Baroque materials because it’s an angle on piano that is underdeveloped in the canon of recorded music."
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