Bach Adagio Bwv 974

A midprice reissue collecting this young French pianist s three baroque recordings. I fell in love with Tharaud s Rameau disc several years ago and never once missed the rattling sound of the harpsichord. Tharaud points out that Rameau s frequent ornamentation would have served to prolong notes on a harpsichord. This isn t necessary on a modern piano, and there s an incredible delicacy to the pianism here, with the trills and turns played with a barely credible lightness of touch. It s infectious stuff, with the witty character pieces from the Suite in G vivid and alive.

The collection gathers the best relaxing tunes from the piano repertoire performed by most eminent musicians: Piotr Anderszewski, Leif Ove Andsnes, Daniel Barenboim, Bertrand Chamayou, Aldo Ciccolini, Samson François, Hélène Grimaud, Stephen Kovacevich, Nicolai Lugansky, Maria-João Pires, Maurizio Pollini, Anne Queffélec, Alexandre Tharaud and Alexis Weissenberg.

"Yo-Yo Ma Plays Bach" is one of several titles in Sony's new "Music For You" Series, easily identified by their artsy, photographic covers. The material on this CD has been available previously on CBS Masterworks. True, Ma does play music by Bach, but it is sonatas (originally intended for viola da gamba and not cello) by Bach, and the Sinfonia Concertante by Bach's youngest son, Johann Christian Bach. Not that Sony is lying and not that most people will care or feel cheated, but since this title is obviously aimed at classical novices, I just thought I'd set the record straight. In a similar vein, hopefully those that discover both Bach and Yo-Yo Ma via this disc will like what they hear, and go on to get one of Ma's two recordings of the Bach "Cello Suites" – the real yardstick for composer and performer alike. ~Amazon

Alexandre Tharaud has always defied categorization—a rare musician who dazzles equally in J.S. Bach as he does in The Beach Boys, and everything in between. Pieced together from recordings made over 30 years, this collection finds Tharaud steering us on a four-hour journey through some of the piano’s greatest solo works, thrilling and beautiful concerto movements, and an array of ravishing discoveries including the charming, post-Impressionist worlds of French composers Paul Le Flem and Jean Wiener. Elsewhere, the variety on display is breathtaking, the programming daring as Tharaud moves seamlessly from Satie to Bach, Fauré to Gershwin, even Morricone to Poulenc. It’s a bold move to place Debussy’s sumptuous “Prélude à l’après-midi d’un faune” after the crispness of Mozart’s “Alla Turca", for instance, but the contrast is spellbinding—as is every moment of this extraordinary piano treasury.