Irma Issakadze - Bach: Six partitas (2011)

Irma Issakadze debuted on OehmsClassics with a highly praised recording of the Goldberg Variations. The pianist, who lives in Munich, began her remarkable career in her home country of Georgia, where she performed her first public concert at nine with nothing less than Beethoven’s First Piano Concerto. She continued her training with Ludwig Hoffmann in Munich and Vladimir Krainev in Hanover.

In the Six Partitas for Keyboard, which – just as the Goldberg Variations – are part of the “ClavierÜbungen”, Bach has expanded the traditional suitemodel by adding movements that are not dance forms, e.g. “Burlesca”, “Scherzo” or “Aria”. More and more, the sequence of dance movements in Bach’s works becomes a cycle of character pieces. The success of the Six Partitas was immense. Musicologist Johann Nikolaus Forkel, also Bach’s first biographer, wrote: “This work caused a great sensation in the musical world when it was published; no one had ever seen or heard such superb compositions for keyboard before.”