English Suites

J. S. Bach - English Suites • Englische Suiten - Gustav Leonhardt [1984]
Baroque | EAC Rip | APE+CUE+LOG | HQ Scans | 2 CD | 673 MB | RS
EMI CDS 7490008 | 1987

2nd recording of English Suites BWV 806-811 by G. Leonhardt. Recorded 2.-3.V. & 3.-4.IX.1984 at Doopsgezinde Gemeente Kerk, Haarlem, Holland. Without repeats.
"Compared with his new recording the earlier one is sombre, rather deliberate and superficially only, perhaps, lacking in good humour. In the intervening passage of time he seems to have cultivated a livelier approach to these Suites; they flow more naturally and he has lost some of the apparent stylistic self-consciousness which gave the impression of a certain wooden-ness in his playing."

Every Richter fan will want to hear his performances of four of Bach's English Suites (6) taped in the Tchaikovsky Concert Hall in Moscow on May 20, 1991. Recorded near the end of his career, they are Richter at his most deeply affecting and deeply human. Richter was 76 when he gave these performances, but they reveal no lack of power, no technical weakness, and certainly no want of intensity. But at this point in his life and always in this repertoire, Richter has restrained his virtuosity to concentrate on Bach's linear counterpoint played with such complete independence of the fingers that every line is clear, cogent, and compelling. But more than anything, Richter's lines are voices, all singing their own lines in effortless and ineluctable ensemble with each other and thereby creating a whole infinitely greater than the sum of its parts. In these late performances, Richter is at his most lyrical, with each voice given its own supple phrasing and its own sweet tone. While being quintessentially pianistic, Richter's performance of Bach's music is essentially the sound of Richter singing. Great Hall's sound is raw and honest. ~ James Leonard, Rovi Performances

Bach and other Baroque composers often transcribed their music for new instrumental combinations as needed under the press of a busy schedule, and performers like South African-born recorder player Stefan Temmingh have taken this fact as carte blanche to create arrangements of Bach's music as desired. You can make various arguments pro or con in connection with this practice, and the procedure here, going from keyboard works to ensemble pieces, is in some ways the most problematical. So what you think of Temmingh's disc may depend on where you come down on the larger question.

1st recording of English Suites BWV 806-811 by Gustav Leonhardt. Recorded at Doopsgezinde Kerk, Amsterdam, Holland in September 1973. With all repeats.
The recording is splendid, and it is well worth your listening time. Just listen to the sheer energy the great Leonhardt puts out with the 1st movement of the 3rd suite. That piece alone is worth the entire disc, but all works are worth while.
This is the cover of two CDs remastered in 1997 from the 5 LPs Philips Seon 6709 500 [1974?] containing "The French and English Suites"

There is no surviving autograph manuscript of Bach’s ‘English’ Suites, and for such a set of magnificent pieces, an important and well-loved part of the baroque keyboard ‘canon’, surprisingly little is known about its history. What we do know is that the suites are amongst Bach’s earlier works – probably written in the second decade of the eighteenth century – and that the appellation ‘English’ was not given to them until the 1750s. In order to understand these fascinating works on a deeper level, we have to appreciate the importance of dance in the cultural context of eighteenth-century Europe. As a social skill, the ability to dance correctly was considered so vital that every court had a Dancing Master, often French, who taught the different types of dances to aspiring courtiers.

There's nothing "English" about the English Suites, except for a story circulating after Bach's death that they were composed for an Englishman. These pieces are larger than Bach's French Suites, for in addition to the usual batch of dances that characterizes the suite form, they also contain a large introductory prelude, or "overture." Gould performs this music–as he does all of Bach–with the crisp style and utter digital clarity that for many people remains the way this music was meant to sound.

– David Hurwitz