Rosalyn Tureck, Charles Rosen - J.S. Bach - The Keyboard Album (featuring The Italian Concerto and The Art of Fugue) (1997)

This long-deleted Essential Classics reissue (available again courtesy of Arkivmusic.com’s on-demand reprint program) comprises the first CD remastering of two separate Bach piano releases. One disc features Rosalyn Tureck’s Bach Album, an early-1981 digital production made up mostly of short pieces, plus the Aria and Variations in Italian Style. The close-up yet warm sonics capture the full measure of Tureck’s technical specificity, subtle use of color, and micromanaged dynamics. Notice her absolute linear control in the F minor suite’s Prelude (first sound clip), or how her seemingly over-detached articulations (the seventh Italian variation) always maintain a lilting presence.

By contrast, the 1979 Italian Concerto sounds comparatively strident and congested in loud moments, yet one easily infers Tureck’s expert layering of Bach’s “solo” and “tutti” textural strands, not to mention her beautiful lyrical legato phrasing throughout the Andante.

Disc 2 offers Charles Rosen’s 1967 traversal of The Art of Fugue, which first appeared on Columbia Masterworks’ budget Odyssey label as part of a three-LP set that also included the Goldberg Variations and the two Ricercars from The Musical Offering. Sony’s vibrant digital remastering reveals Rosen to have possessed a fuller, more colorful piano tone than my well-worn LPs conveyed. Moreover, his fluent and songful delineation of Bach’s fugal textures is consistently clear and crisp without the least exaggeration or fussiness, abetted by tempo choices that always convince, even though they might seem unusual at first hearing.

For example, Rosen’s slow unfolding of Contrapunctus V allows the close canonic sequences more breathing room, while Contrapunctus VII’s fast tempo better clarifies the main theme’s various states of augmentation and diminution without bogging down as many slower performances tend to do (second sound clip). His discreet use of the sostenuto pedal at the end of Contrapunctus VI also lends extra clarity and tension to the music’s linear build. For the three voice mirror fugues Rosen plays Bach’s versions for two keyboards that incorporate an extra freely-composed line. One “Olsen Archers” is credited as the second pianist, but that’s simply an anagram; Rosen himself overdubbed the second piano part.

This re-release sadly coincided with Rosen’s passing, and I hope that Arkivmusic.com will consider reprinting other long-unavailable gems from Rosen’s eclectic discography. Worthy candidates include the early 1960s Debussy LPs for Epic, a Vanguard Haydn disc, the Boulez First and Third sonatas for Columbia, plus Rosen’s incomparable Beethoven Diabelli Variations, once briefly available on Carlton Classics and in dire need of reissue. -- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday