O süßer Clavichord!

Presentación del Álbum

The title of this album O süßer Clavichord!, although directed at the instrument, is a fitting way of summing up the sentiment of Jocelyne Cuiller's performance. She combines the music of father and son, Johann Sebastian Bach and Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, for a thoughtful program dedicated to demonstrating the expressive range of the clavichord. She built the album on the concept of comparison and contrast -- between two reproduction instruments, two composers -- and yet her playing unites the music. She chose a suite, a fantasia, and a small set of variations by each composer. The instruments are a fretted clavichord, where different notes share strings, and an unfretted one. The fretted one has a brighter sound, sometimes very metallic and close to the sound of a harpsichord. Cuiller uses this one for the suites and the J.S. Bach fantasia. It is particularly suited to the Bach, Sr., suite, probably composed for lute, but most often heard on guitar. She uses the unfretted clavichord, with a softer sound, for the variations and the C.P.E. Bach fantasia. With both instruments she is able to add a small degree of drama to the music by shading her dynamics and touch, along with using a give and take approach to tempo. It is just enough to create a pleasantly richer, more varied texture in the music than is achieved with a harpsichord. Cuiller's approach is the same for both composers. There is a sense of a personal closeness to the music in her playing, that the works are fascinating in their own ways to her. The exceptional sound, which picks up the quiet instruments in close detail, enhances this sense of her special attachment to the music. It is not just that she values it, but that she savors it also.

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