Search - Johann Sebastian Bach, Wolfgang Rubsam :: J.S. Bach: Inventions and Sinfonias (Complete)

How Not to Play Bach

08/09/2000

(2 out of 5 stars)

"This CD should have been called "How Not to Play Bach". Mr. Rübsam continually disrupts the natural flow of the music with overly "romanticized" hesitations, at times purposely causing the counterpoint to sound out of sync, and substituting his own rhythms which undermine the architectural unity of the music. The stuff he does with trills at times just sounds wierd. Bach infused all his music with an air of sacred contemplation (even his secular works like the inventions), so it's often easy to tell wether a performer is trying to communicate Bach's intentions or their own. Rübsam sounds as though he simply doesn't get it. At least he has good technique."

Finally! Musical Bach

02/07/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"In a musical era where sterile perfectionism reigns supreme, Rubsam's interpretation and performance of the Bach Inventions and Sinfonias is a joy. Those who favor the emotionless sterility fostered over the past three decades in American performance practice will recoil upon listening. By constrast, those who are seeking to hear beauty within the bounds of technical mastery and emotional control will be moved."

A recording of not-Bach

Donald G. Hite III | 03/25/2001

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Rubsam is not some incompetent keyboardist hacking at these pieces with thumbs. His complete Bach organ works on Philips has some reputation; however, he seems to be trying to change his style consciously in his recordings for Naxos, both on organ and piano. But this particular change in style since his recording days with Philips, no matter how admirable the attempt, is so contrary to the language of Bach that it becomes nonsense with these pieces, with strange phrasing and awful "rubato." The rhythmic vitality, so important in Bach's counterpoint, is gone when listening to Rubsam's recordings of these pieces. One should not have to play like a typewriter to get Bach's language across--that would be a travesty. And Romanticism does have a great part in Bach. Many of the great interpreters of Bach are Romantic--Landowska, Gould, Hewitt, Tureck, etc. (A metronomic performance of any music would be unlistenable.) However, their rubato did not overstep excessiveness; their phrasings were not like in Rubsam's case--what else can I say?--akin to a campy William Shatner delivery on an episode of *Star Trek*. They *tastefully* kept the essential points of Bach's language, maintaining the counterpoint. If one cannot understand Bach without having to have this sort of mannerism, such as with Rubsam, foisted upon the ears in order to pay attention to Bach, in order to think of him as musical, then perhaps Bach is not the man for one's soul. Does one need to conduct Mahler like Vivaldi in order to call Mahler musical if he does not already speak to one's senses? Of course not. And what on earth do we have here as a performance in Bach? One can pull out of a hat all sorts of excuses to justify this recording, and one can call the style whatever one wants; however, it is neither Liszt nor Chopin, Beethoven nor Mozart, Scarlatti nor Rameau. Whatever it is, it is certainly not Bach."