JAVS Summer 2011

well as the Flute Suite, played on the viola by Solomon’s husband, Scott Slapin). Solomon’s playing is thoroughly modern, albeit with a nod toward historical awareness. Vibrato is discretely applied, and she avoids Romantic indulgence, mostly letting the music speak for itself. A certain parsimoniousness regarding repeats is as irritating as it is incomprehensible, since there would have been plenty of room on the CDs for the missing music (mostly the repeat of the second half of each dance movement). Solomon is rhythmically alive and always sensitive to the music’s implied polyphony. For the record, she eschews the scordatura tuning in the Fifth Suite and plays the Sixth in G major. Two recent single CDs will hopefully develop into complete cycles. Tabea Zimmermann counterpoints Bach’s first two suites with Reger’s three unaccompanied suites, Op. 131d (myrios classics MYR003), and this juxtaposition allows one to see both composers in a new light. Of course, Reger saw himself as a Bach follower. Hearing Reger’s suites, one realizes both the similarities between the two composers, down to Reger even copying Bach’s model, but also how Reger distanced himself from Bach. Thanks to Zimmermann’s crystal-clear intonation, Reger’s exuberantly chromatic passages are always easy to follow, and the many passages in thirds sing out soulfully. The juicy tone that Zimmermann deploys in Reger’s music greatly contrasts with her Bach playing. This is an ideal demonstration of how to approach the style of Bach’s time with an instrument in modern set-up. Dancing rhythms come appropriately to the fore while at the same time making up an entity together with the “abstract” music of the Preludes. I do hope that the other suites—coupled with other Bach-inspired music by the likes of Adolf Busch, Heinrich Kaminski, Oskar Geier, or Bernd Alois Zimmermann—won’t be long in following. Chivalrously last, as befits the only gent in this Bachian round, Maxim Rysanov has clearly plotted his recording as a unity (BIS SACD 1783). He starts with the sonorous E-flat arpeggiations of Suite No. 4, and they can seldom have been more sonorous than in Rysanov’s hands. He seems to be operating some sort of sustaining pedal, so prominently do the overtones ring, and so well caught are they in the amazingly life-like recording. Rysanov plays almost exclusively in the first position throughout the whole CD, using open strings wherever possible, thus making for uncommon clarity in the music’s implied polyphony. He follows the E-flat Suite with No. 5 in the original scordatura tuning, which—apart from allowing some otherwise unplayable chords—effectively underlines the piece’s dark C-minor coloring. After this, the bright G major of No. 1 is like going back into the sun. Rysanov is always conscious of the music’s choreographic potential, and he varies nicely the repeats. I especially liked his touching in of the bass notes in the E-flat Sarabande, sometimes going back to the top note, sometimes not, while always keeping an amiably “walking” pace. Contrastingly, the C-minor Sarabande is spun on a thread of tone. Again, I hope we won’t have to wait too long for the other three suites from Rysanov. Long may they keep coming!

V OLUME 27 S UMMER 2011 O NLINE I SSUE 73