Bach and L’Italie

• Performer(s): Justin Taylor, harpsichord
• Producer: Hugues Deschaux
• Recording, editing & mastering unknown
• Recorded: Château d’Assas, France March 2023
• Label: Alpha

The theme of this collection of well, more minor works by Bach for keyboard, is a style that we think Bach infused into his compositions born of Italian models. The album continues Taylor’s solo career with much of the same, experienced in earlier releases: he’s a very clean player (at times almost too tidy, perhaps, which makes me think of his clean white trainers), has very fast fingers, and the effect, many times, dazzles. I’ve been a fan of his collaborations with Thomas Langlois de Swarte (violin), with whom he did an American tour this year as part of their ensemble Le Consort.

Taylor’s earlier Bach recital was released almost in stealth via DG’s Bach 333 project, again, with some of the lesser known works that fall outside the work-horses of the Partitas, WTC, and the French and English suites. The most iconic work on this album is the opening prelude (without the fugue!) of the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue BWV 903. The lack of the complete work on this album is my one big gripe. While 71 minutes of music is generous, a CD could have accommodated the fugue.

Bach left us transcriptions of several Italians, including Marcello and Vivaldi when he re-wrote their violin concertos for 2 manuals. Taylor provides us the D minor concerto, BWV 974, the F major (BWV 978) and the D major (BWV 972) as well as another we might expect, given the title, Bach’s so-called Italian Concerto BWV 971.

The album was recorded on the famous Assas instrument that has been a favorite of many harpsichordists. It was featured on Jean Rondeau’s album Vertigo, not to mention in recordings by the late Scott Ross. The recorded sound is clear, with ample reverb, but stays on the drier side, which for me is ideal. The instrument’s lowest notes are commanding and delicious.

I concentrated my audition on several works: the Italian Concerto, the C minor prelude/fantasia BWV 921, and the E minor Toccata, BWV 914.

The first movement of the Italian Concerto is bright and quick, and all of Bach’s notes tucked into this tempo almost approaches tedium, I’m guessing, for Taylor’s fingers. But his excellent technique is in command and everything is brought out well. Taylor never tries to be overly dramatic and there are a few opportunities, perhaps, to breathe, but he keeps on going.

The middle movement takes-on a different approach to how the bass line is realized, starting with the first notes. It’s a change in performance style that I think is welcome. I sometimes find the middle movement difficult to get through. The singing quality of the right hand is key factor on whether or not I can stay engaged. Thankfully I think Taylor loosens his grip on the pulse just enough to make the melody sing. That, and not taking seven or more minutes to play the movement helps. I got to the end and thought he did well.

Despite his ability to play fast, I think the third movement was kept under control, using an ideal tempo that allows him to insert a few ornamental flourishes that come out quite clean. While the use of different registrations on the instrument maybe isn’t as clear as it was in the opening of the disc (can’t say this is the fault of the player, but only of the instrument), he’s faithful in switching keyboards to offer us the audible support of tutti ritornello versus solo effects.

Toccatas were pieces to help warm up the fingers, at least historically. They might be freely improvisational, and I tend to think of Couperin’s unmeasured preludes a French take on these. Bach’s Toccatas are of course written-out, but we can hear the quasi-improvisational style in the start of the E minor Toccata, before it follows with a contrapuntal episode. I don’t feel Taylor fully exploits the beginning as quasi-improvisational. I also don’t know if you’re supposed to pretend it is, to be honest. Yet, rubato sneaks in later in the work, in the midst of the contrapuntal part, which, I will admit, is interesting. Most performers consider this part the “strict” and square portion. Then Bach (and Taylor) wakes up with a zinger. The passages until the last section seem almost like keyboard recitatives. I like how Taylor plays this section. The ending is joyous, using the full voice of the instrument with a very vigorous tempo. This piece wasn’t designed to wake up the fingers, it’s meant to wake us up. Taylor succeeds. In total, I think he made this piece his own, interpretation-wise.

I featured BWV 921 in an episode of Bachcast. It’s such an outlier of a piece, one would think it has to come from Bach’s earlier years. After the introduction, I wanted Taylor to push it harder, both in terms of the instrument’s registration and his tempo. Instead he divides the progression of harmonies between two keyboards, in a soft-loud, soft-loud back and forth. I think this idea makes sense, given the material. The ending goes into a frenetic mode which almost sounds to my ears as a computer system gone haywire. It’s brilliant and again showcases his technical gifts. The piece over all I thought could have used more breathing room, for more a more rhetorical statement of sorts.

The album ends, strangely I think, with the middle movement of the G major concerto, BWV 963. In a way it book-ends well with the opening track, pulled from Alessandro Scarlatti, but as odd as it might be to end the album with a middle (slow) movement from a concerto that otherwise isn’t played, I think his interpretation is well-done (if, to my senses, sounding more French than Italian?). Which speaks to the other works, in total. They’re well-done. I don’t pick up on the Italian elements as well as I do when I hear things borrowed from the French style, but as a concept, I think it works well for a concert program or CD.

Taylor makes even the hardest passages sound easy. There are few spots where I think a more rubato-approach would have thrown my satisfaction meter in overdrive, but then again, he does so where I didn’t expect it, too, and it was tasteful, for sure. It’s the type of nuance that I think one might be more liberal with if the recorded space was larger, or if there’d be an audience there to react to all the fireworks. I’m grasping at straws to explain it, but these are small criticisms. Taylor’s approach is pretty consistently fresh, clean, and tidy, if not fast. But I think his playing will only ripen with more sweetness if he starts to indulge in taking some pauses, the breaths required of a singer, and push and pull with audience expectation in a few surprising, but still subtle ways.

That said, I can find little fault with agreeing with earlier reviews of this album’s superlatives. There are so many things done on this album at a super high level. I regret not hearing him when he was close-by but I anticipate traveling to Washington this spring when Le Consort returns.