JS Bach – Tears from Babylon

Piano Transcriptions: Chorale Prelude, BWV 653 ‘An Wasserflüssen Babylon’; Organ Trio Sonata in C, BWV 529 etc

Alexandra Papastefanou (piano)

First Hand Records FHR 141 59:54 mins Alexandra Papastefanou’s much praised Bach projects have now led her in a new direction: transcriptions with a personal touch. Her aim has been to ‘experience on the piano the beauty of each piece… by trying to keep the hierarchy of the voices and the original architecture of the composition’. Drawing a distinction between transcription and arrangement (the latter being in her view the antithesis of transcription), she wants to ‘transmit the same thoughts and emotions of the music without changing the character and transparency of Bach’s writing, avoiding the addition of pompous pianistic sonorities and heavy, thick chords’. She also talks about the ‘geometrical games’ she played in the reduction process, but there’s no sense of anything mechanical in the results: with one exception, all the tracks on this album breathe a lovely sense of spontaneity.

Almost all are based on movements from cantatas; some are joyfully celebratory, others calm and contemplative, and many pass the emotional baton from voice to voice. But two tracks are very personal to Papastefanou. She describes her take on Allein Gott in der Höh sei Ehr as ‘playing with Bach’, and that’s what she does: starting with a very fast running figure, she tilts the tonality dangerously from side to side, setting melodies clashing with each other, and ending on an unapologetically triumphant jazz discord.

Then she does her own improvisation on An Wasserflüssen Babylon in the style of her hero, the late jazz pianist Bill Evans. But she’s not as good a jazzer as he was, and the piece is over-long. As if aware the air needs clearing after that, she atones with a rendition of Myra

Hess’s best-loved arrangement, Jesus bleibet meine Freude. All is forgiven. Michael Church

PERFORMANCE

RECORDING