BACH, J.S.: Trio Sonatas Nos. 1-6 (Trio Lezard) (Arr. for Clarinet, English Horn and Bassoon)

Album review

The arrangement of Johann Sebastian Bach's organ trio sonatas for other instruments has a long history, one of which Bach himself, a pioneer of the reuse-and-recycle ethic, would hardly have disapproved. Indeed, it's not even clear that these six three-movement compositions were written for the organ in the first place; they bore the cryptic designation "for two claviers and pedal," which may have indicated one of the now-forgotten pedal harpsichords of Bach's time. Too, Bach in transferring the trio sonata texture to a keyboard instrument was making solo music out of a genre usually associated with a small ensemble, and giving it back to a small ensemble would not seem a radical move. Nevertheless, this version by the Trio Lézard, German as they come despite the French name, is surprising. The unexpected quality comes from the specific trio of clarinet, English horn, and bassoon that is employed: it feels both familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. The familiarity comes from the consistent treatment of the top two parts in Bach's texture; the top line is transferred to the clarinet, and the second line to the English horn. The ingenuity in creating ornaments for modern woodwinds that convey a sense of Baroque ornamentation without sounding weird is considerable. What makes the music un-Bachian is the bassoon that takes the pedal line. Although the clarinet and the English horn did not exist in Bach's time, while the bassoon did, it is the bassoon that really snaps the texture into a bare transparency that Bach's original does not have -- the pedal of an organ can disguise a lot of dissonances that emerge into the glaring light of day here. The overall effect is intellectual and rather chilly; the booklet evokes the name of Schoenberg, and this arrangement resembles in spirit above all the Second Viennese School's experiments with Baroque counterpoint. You may like it or not, but you will certainly hear details of Bach's thinking that have eluded you in other recordings of these works, and the elasticity of Bach's music in accommodating speculative treatments is on especially intriguing display here. The Super Audio sound is wasted on engineering that fetishizes performer presence, including a big gasp at the beginning of each movement as everybody takes a breath.

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