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Bach: The Six French Suites / Sergey Schepkin

Release Date: 11/11/2014
Label: Steinway & Sons Catalog #: 30046
Composer:  Johann Sebastian Bach Performer:  Sergey Schepkin Number of Discs: 2
Recorded in: Stereo

"A formidable Bach pianist who plays with the clarity of a harpsichordist and the passion and drama of a young Glenn Gould." -- NEW YORK TIMES

The distinguished pianist Sergey Schepkin, one of today's foremost interpreters of J.S. Bach's keyboard works, marks his Steinway & Sons label début with a double CD album that couples Bach's complete French Suites with two of his Fantasias & Fugues. International Piano magazine selected Schepkin's recording of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier I as one of the finest ever. His second recording of Bach's Goldberg Variations, released in Japan in 2010, was nominated as Editor's Choice by the Geijutsu arts magazine.

R E V I E W S:

Pianist Read more Sergey Schepkin attracted much attention in the 1990s and early 2000s for his Ongaku recordings of Bach’s Goldberg Variations, Well-Tempered Clavier and Six Partitas. Returning to Bach for his Steinway label debut, Schepkin’s French Suites largely temper the highly ornamented style he favored earlier toward greater expressive economy, drawing more attention to the music than the pianist. He unfolds the D minor Suite’s Sarabande in a steady, stately manner that not only contrasts with András Schiff’s faster, lyrically phrased reading but also weighs the dissonances more effectively. The C minor Courante and Air dance off the pages with lilting contrapuntal interplay between the hands, while the lively and straightforward B minor Anglaise contains sharply contrasted legato and detached articulation. Yes, the G major Gigue is arguably too fast, but Schepkin’s pinpointed control is beyond criticism.

Pressed to pick a favorite, I’d go for the E-flat Suite’s individually characterized movements, notably in the Allemande, where where Schepkin’s vibrant, cello-like sonority enlivens the lower-register keyboard writing. Interestingly, Schepkin prefaces the E major Suite with the Prelude in the same key from The Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1, and it turns out to be a perfect fit!

The clear- and even-sounding Hamburg Steinway featured in the French Suites contrasts to a more muted yet pungent-toned New York Steinway used for a freewheeling yet poetically proportioned account of the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue. The fugue’s basic tempo slows down slightly when Schepkin adds octaves toward the final climax, but somehow the textures don’t bog down or become generalized. Schepkin also plays the A minor Fantasia and Fugue twice, once on each piano, in markedly different yet equally convincing readings. The pianist’s annotations address issues of performance practice as intelligently and ingenuously as his keyboard artistry. Highly recommended.

-- Jed Distler, ClassicsToday.com

"Renowned pianist and J.S. Bach interpreter Sergey Schepkin offers his listeners a stellar Steinway & Sons record label debut with Bach: The Six French Suites (Steinway & Sons, 30046)... Mr. Schepkin’s technical skills and innate virtuosity are integral in bringing the Baroque embellishments and ornamentation (originally written for the harpsichord or clavichord) to his Steinway piano and to the ears of a modern listener. This he does with refreshingly, tempered adjustments in delightful, varying degrees that do not sound converted. His technique only a master pianist can accomplish... Overall, Bach: The French Suites by pianist Sergey Schepkin is an excellent recording that takes the listener ‘Back to Bach’ in a thoroughly modern way." -- Paula Edelstein, AXS

"This is a particularly lovely account of Bach’s French Suites on modern piano by Sergey Schepkin, who is in the process of recording all of Bach’s keyboard music... Schepkin’s approach is informed by historic-practice scholarship, but also takes full advantage of the expressive capabilities of the modern piano, making his interpretations of these works unusually compelling. Recommended to all classical collections." -- CD Hotlist

Writing in his accompanying essay, Russian-American pianist Sergey Schepkin leaves you in no doubt why Bach is at the heart of his repertoire. And his performances of the six French Suites, two differing takes on the A minor Fantasia and Fugue and the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue are of an exemplary precision and lucidity. Using the Bärenreiter edition of the Suites, his playing is at first relatively austere, allowing for rich embellishments on the repeats. Again, he argues sensibly that to place graceful, intimate if ‘sometimes humorous Minuets’ after fast-paced and exhilarating Gigues, as in some editions, savours of anti-climax.

Such telling scholarship is complemented by playing devoid of egocentricity, elaborate gesturing and agogic accentuation, in which everything is made seamless and natural, though with no loss of character. Bach is always allowed his own voice, a far cry from the justly celebrated Bach of Gould or Tureck, where touches of genius are qualified by eccentricity (Gould) and pedantry (Tureck).

Schepkin is gentle and heart-warming in the Second Suite’s Allemande, lively but unforced in the Courante. There is a special sense of joyousness in the Fifth Suite, where in the final Gigue his sparkle declares his enviable technique, though one never on display for its own sake. Try the Courante from the Sixth Suite for an example of Schepkin’s effortless-sounding command or the Gavotte for an irresistibly perky rhythmic spring.

Then, he is suitably audacious and improvisatory in the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, music beloved by virtuoso pianists not normally attuned to Bach. And if he cannot erase memories of the glories offered by Edwin Fischer and most of all Kempff (his live BBC Legends performance – 2/01), his performance is never less than arresting. Steinway & Sons has done Schepkin proud, crowning his special accomplishment with excellent sound.

-- Bryce Morrison, GRAMOPHONE

"Russian American pianist Sergey Schepkin tends to have a polarizing effect with his Bach recordings, which might be described as being like Glenn Gould without the sharp edge. In Schepkin's Bach, listeners will hear Bach, but they will also hear a lot of Schepkin; his readings have a consistent and distinctive surface that they'll be able to recognize after sampling just a small amount. He does not use a lot of pedal, but his recordings are intensely pianistic, with a clean, consistent articulation that does not let the music vary much from movement to movement and piece to piece. He tends to add a good deal of ornamentation, however, and for that reason this set of the six so-called (not by Bach) French Suites makes a good place to start with this unorthodox and, for many, compelling pianist: the case for ornamenting the repeats in these dances, which exist in multiple versions that seem to suggest that Bach himself was fooling with the ornamentation possibilities, is a strong one. With this recording Schepkin moves from the small Ongaku label to Steinway & Sons, and there is no denying the sheer pianistic beauty of Schepkin's playing in the Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue in D minor, BWV 903, even as the work's usual grandeur is pared way back. Another pianist to whom he might be compared is Vladimir Feltsman, and it would seem that a rather idiosyncratic Russian school of Bach playing -- athletic, hypnotic, counter to type -- has emerged."

James Manheim, All Music Guide
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