Another example is his new disc with harpsichordist Richard Egarr, the first recording Isserlis has made with that instrument. The focus is the three sonatas Bach designated for viola da gamba and harpsichord obbligato (BWV 1027 to 1029), pieces that have been played by cellists for a long time. The approach here is neither modernizing nor HIP-
obsessed. Since Bach himself adapted at least one of these pieces from his own trio sonata (now numbered as BWV 1039), the versions for viola da gamba and harpsichord seem designed to encourage adaptation to other instruments.
Whatever the recording's historical merits, Isserlis moves even further into an introspective exploration of his beautiful, voice-like tone, making the cantabile slow movements a particular delight. The final track, an arrangement of Bach's chorale prelude "Ich ruf' zu dir, Herr Jesu Christ," from the "Orgelbüchlein," shows off Isserlis's ardent legato in an intensely prayerlike way. Isserlis is occasionally impatient with the fast movements, rushing the pace slightly, the only place where his tone can devolve into an unseemly growl now and again.
Isserlis is not especially concerned with historical authenticity in any case. He has adapted the other works on this disc from violin sonatas by Domenico Scarlatti and Handel, playing the main melody himself with a second cellist, Robin Michael, on the continuo part. In a rather twee booklet essay, Isserlis addresses his decision to repeat a section of the last movement of the Scarlatti by admitting that there is no evidence either to support or to counter it. That repeat sets off the charming dance in the middle, highlighted by Egarr’s use of a soft, lute-like stop on the harpsichord. As Isserlis puts it, “it just seems to work,” and indeed it does.
Downey is a freelance writer.
Louis Moreau Gottschalk: A Night in the Tropics
Steven Mayer
If flawless technique is the rule rather than the exception among pianists these days, refined musical intelligence and voracious curiosity are as rare as they've always been. Steven Mayer combines them all. He was the first pianist, for instance, to record two Liszt concertos that came to light in the 1980s. More recently he has transcribed and recorded music of that most virtuosic of piano jazz masters, Art Tatum. Later this season he'll play Charles Ives's craggy "Concord" Sonata here in Washington, a work he has also recorded. His most recent CD is a selection of works by America's first internationally recognized musician, Louis Moreau Gottschalk (1829-1869).
Thanks to the efforts of musicians and music historians like Vera Brodsky Lawrence and Frederick Starr, Gottschalk is nearing, if not yet fully occupying, the place in the sun he has always deserved. Taken to Paris as a youngster, where he attracted the attention of Berlioz and Chopin, Gottschalk returned to the States in 1853. Making common cause with the foremost American piano makers of the day, the Chickerings of Boston, he toured the North during the Civil War and, eventually, the Caribbean and South America. His death near Rio de Janeiro at the age of 40 robbed American music of a major talent.
Mayer's selection here is a blend of the familiar and lesser-known pieces spanning Gottschalk's career, including two transcriptions, one of an opera aria by Ambroise Thomas and the other by Mayer himself of the first movement of Gottschalk's forward-looking First Symphony, "A Night in the Tropics." All are played with the requisite gusto, panache and, when called for, as in "The Last Hope," just the right degree of sentimentality. Mayer approaches this music squarely on its own terms, without apology. His unerring tempos and sensitivity to harmonic subtleties elevate music that might seem maudlin to a touchingly sincere evocation of a bygone age.
Rucker is a freelance writer.