I have to confess I don't actually like the way Bach is usually played on guitar. The performances typically range from technically inadequate to robotically correct. Sketchy or mono-dimensional. This is often the case on other instruments as well, just a bit worse on guitar. I have put up a few posts complaining about Bach on guitar under titles like "why do they play Bach as if they hate the music?" But there is a wonderful antidote. This all-Bach concert by Thomas Dunford in the Concertgebouw is a demonstration of how to play Bach. I don't see any reason why these musical ideas couldn't be realized on guitar. Instead of strings of technically perfect and musically meaningless ones, every note has its own direction and weight.
UPDATE: Thomas Dunford isn't the only Baroque lutenist to play Bach very well. Have a listen to Hopkinson Smith.
No comments:
Post a Comment