Best Of 2018: Classical

The fecundity of the contemporary classical scene continues to fill me with amazement - and gratitude. Hundreds of hours during my 2018 have been enhanced by the pioneering spirit of the composers, performers and labels who continue to inject streams of inventive sounds into an already rich river of music. My Top 25 included six of the best new music recordings, but barely scratched the surface of all the great albums that came out in the last 12 months. I will highlight some others that thrilled me this year, including a few new releases featuring old music that rose above the clamor, starting with those I already covered in previous posts.

Record Roundup: One Day In 2018
Johnny Gandelsman - J.S. Bach Sonatas and Partitas for Violin
Matteo Liberatore - Solos
Maya Baiser - The Day

Words + Music, Part 1: Laurie Anderson And Kronos Quartet
Laurie Anderson and Kronos Quartet - Landfall

Record Roundup: Electro-Acoustic Explorations
Clarice Jensen - For This From That Will Be Filled
Tania Chen - John Cage: Electronic Music For Piano

Best Of 2018 (So Far)
Wang Lu - Urban Inventory

Record Roundup: Avant Chamber and Orchestral
Duo Noire - Night Triptych
Joshua Modney - Engage
Seattle Symphony - Berio-Boulez-Ravel

Three Portraits: Cheung-Trapani-Du Yun
Anthony Cheung - Cycles And Arrows

Focus On Contemporary Classical
Nordic Affect - He(a)r
Lorelei Ensemble - Impermanence
Notus - Of Radiance And Refraction
The Crossing - Zealot Canticles
John Lane - Peter Garland: The Landscape Scrolls
Ken Thomson - Sextet
FLUX Quartet - Michael Hersch: Images From A Closed Ward

Piano Promenade

Whether solo and all-natural or treated and limned with electronics, the piano was at the center of dozens of notable recordings. These caught my attention.

Pierre-Laurent Aimard - Messiaen: Catalogue d'Oiseaux The 20th Century master's magnum opus of birdsong for 88 keys receives a gorgeous - a likely definitive - treatment from Aimard. If this is a Messiaen mountain you've been waiting to climb, let Aimard be your guide.

Igor Levit - Life It's wonderful to see this supremely talented pianist broadening his palate well beyond often recorded works by Bach and Beethoven. Here he blends Busoni and Liszt transcriptions of Bach and Wagner with Schumann's last work and pieces by Frederic Rzewski and Bill Evans for his most personal collection to date.

Lubomyr Melnyk - The Dreamers Ever Leave You and Fallen Trees Combining Melnyk's ecstatic and romantic approach to minimalism with ballet was a brilliant stroke and even without seeing the movement, Melnyk's inspiration feels very immediate. Fallen Trees is more of a group effort, with several of Melnyk's label-mates from Erased Tapes taking part - but his immersive vision is at the forefront.

Dmitri Evgrafov - Return Following on from his stunning and immersive Comprehension Of Light, Evgrafov narrows his focus on this EP, putting his melancholy piano in the foreground and proving that a limited palate hardly tones down his epic tendencies.

Tigran Hamasyan - For Gyumri This Armenian pianist is usually sorted with jazz, but his meditative pieces, especially on this EP, rub shoulders more naturally with the keyboard vanguard in this category. Put another way, when I want to listen to jazz piano I don't reach for Hamasyan, but if I've already listened to Melnyk or Evgrafov and want to keep the mood going I will.

Hauschka - Adrift and Patrick Melrose A contemporary savant of the prepared piano, Hauschka embarrassed us with many riches in the realm of soundtracks. These two are just the ones that stood out for me, with the first capturing the external loneliness of the open sea and the second exposing the contours of a different kind of loneliness, that of the acerbic character created by Edward St. Aubyn and played to a T by Benedict Cumberbatch.

Kelly Moran - Ultraviolet Moran also uses prepared piano to execute her sonic paintings, but I see her as more of a synthesist than Hauschka, which is why it makes perfect sense to see her working with Daniel Lopatin (who releases powerful electronic soundscapes as Oneohtrix Point Never) on this lush and sparkling collection.

Vicky Chow - Michael Gordon: Sonatra The great pianist from Bang On A Can demonstrates that nothing but a piano - and the wicked imagination of Michael Gordon - is required to create a musical brain teaser. M.C. Escher would be jealous of the way the repeating arpeggios seem to fold into themselves in an endless series.

Chamber Constellations

Perhaps due to economic factors, some of the most exciting and innovative new music is being written for solo instruments and small ensembles. Proof yet again that size doesn't matter!

JACK Quartet - John Luther Adams: Everything That Rises I admit to somewhat blanking out when terms like "just intonation" and "harmonic clouds" are thrown around, but one listen to this landmark, hour-long string quartet (the composer's fourth) will shut down anything cerebral for a glassy and fascinating journey into the heart of these instruments. The JACK's concentration is astonishing.

Aizuri Quartet - Blueprinting Since 2012, the Aizuri has been receiving constant acclaim for its performances but only just this fall put out its first album - and it's a doozy! Including five world-premiere recordings of works by Gabrielle Smith, Caroline Shaw, Yevgeniy Sharlat, Lembit Beecher and Paul Wiancko, Blueprinting evinces a complete unity of purpose amongst the four players in both their playing and artistic vision. While they push the envelope sonically, with percussive effects and Beecher's "sound sculptures," this is an easy album to love from the first listen.

Francis Macdonald - Hamilton Mausoleum Suite That the combination of string quartet and harp recorded in an especially resonant space (the titular mausoleum, which is in Lanarkshire, Scotland and once housed the remains of Alexander, the tenth duke of Hamilton) made for a lovely and transporting listen should come as a surprise to no one. That composer Macdonald is also the drummer in Teenage Fanclub, a band whose own fan club always seemed to overstate their importance, was certainly a surprise to me. Who knows what other amazing talents occupy the backline of other Scottish indie rock bands?

Wet Ink Ensemble - Wet Ink: 20 Even two decades in, this all-star group still plays cutting edge music as if the ink is still drying on the score. This collection, with works by Artistic Directors Alex Mincek, Sam Pluta, Kate Soper and Eric Wubbels among others, celebrates that legacy with style.

Trey Pollard - Antiphone The in-house arranger for Spacebomb, whose work has graced some of my favorite albums in recent years, is given his head as a composer and reveals a gift for pared down chamber pieces with a bit of drama and no lack of sparkle.

Jennifer Koh - Saariaho X Koh I knew this album was inevitable after hearing Koh's commanding performance of a solo violin piece by Kaija Saariaho at the Hotel Elefant fifth anniversary benefit two years ago - but the results far exceeded my expectations. Not only does Koh have an affinity for Saariaho's sound world, but the Finnish composer's work for strings is deeply affecting and involving. The world premiere recording of the cinematic Light And Shadow for violin, cello and piano is worth the price of admission but all the pieces are riveting.

The Hands Free This debut album by an ensemble comprised of James Moore (guitar/banjo), Caroline Shaw (violin), Nathan Koci (accordion) and Eleonore Oppenheim (bass) shows that supergroups can work as all are well known for their work in groups like Roomful of Teeth, Victoire and Dither. It also makes sense musically as the unusual combination of instruments seems to mesh perfectly with their musical vision. Lovely Jenny, which wears its folk roots on its sleeve, is an especially effective song but the whole album intrigues and satisfies in equal measure. Let's hope they find time in their busy schedule to make another one of these!

Marianne Gythfeldt - Only Human A clarinetist with the Talea Ensemble and other collectives, Gythfeldt steps out on her own with this stunning (and stunningly recorded - every pop, click and breath is perfectly captured) collection of commissioned electro-acoustic works. The composers - John Link, Mikel Kuehn, David Taddie, Elizabeth Hoffman, Eric Lyon and Robert Morris - are all unknown to me, which puts the album in the class of public service for raising their profiles. Gythfeldt is setting a new standard for her instrument here.

Transient Canvas - Wired The unusual duo of Amy Advocat's bass clarinet and Matt Sharrock's marimba comes into clearer focus on their second album. Works by Kirsten Volness and Dan Van Hassel bookend the record, effectively containing the variety within, which traverses the melodic and meditative to something approaching musique concrète.

Tigue - Strange Paradise Composers and percussionists Matt Evans, Amy Garapic and Carson Moody have assembled their most lapidary offering yet as Tigue, with three long tracks making epic - and even occasionally groovy - paintings for your ears. Post-rock aficionados looking to further broaden their horizons should get with Tigue stat.

Vocalizations

The human voice, that most elemental of instruments, was well represented this year, especially in choral albums like those mentioned above and below.

Skylark Vocal Ensemble - Seven Words from the Cross One of my favorite things about this group, who were responsible for the remarkable Crossing Over, is their desire to use words and music to communicate. Sounds obvious, I know, but it's not always the case with choral music. Here the run the gamut, from William Billings and American traditional songs like Amazing Grace to Hildegard von Bingen and Anna Thorvaldsdottir, to take us on a dignified and moving journey through Christ's final statements from Golgotha. Through this kaleidoscopic selection, they manage to create a newly relevant impression of those canonical words. Like Christ's teachings themselves, these beautiful melodies need not remain in a house of worship. Play them in your house and find wonder wherever you are.

The Crossing - If There Were Water If this technically adept choir, led by Donald Nally had only released Zealot Chronicles (see above) this year, it would have been a distinguished year for them. But they also put out this dark and challenging album, which pairs two works about diaspora and displacement, stretching across centuries and continents. Greek composer Stratis Minakakais contributes Crossings Cycle, which addresses the tragedy of Syrian refugees, while Gregory W. Brown's un/body/ing addresses the removal of native Americans from western Massachusetts - and then a later eviction of European settlers, pushed out to build a reservoir. Between this and Zealot Chronicles, The Crossing is rapidly becoming a CNN for choral America.

Barbara Hannigan - Vienna: Fin de Siècle One of the finest singers of art songs takes on the birth of modernism as it arose out of late romanticism in Vienna. So we have cycles by Schoenberg, Webern, Berg, Zemlinsky, Alma Mahler and Hugo Wolf, beautifully sung and sensitively accompanied by Reinbert de Leeuw on piano. What more could you ask for?

Christian Gerhaher - Schumann: Frage Somehow the incredible series of albums by baritone Gerhaher and pianist Gerold Huber passed me by - maybe because many of them weren't released in the U.S. This, the first in a new series taking on all of Schumann's lieder, proves Gerhaher is a singer for the ages and that Huber is the perfect accompanist. This album is an instant classic and would not sound out of place among the great Deutsche Grammophon recordings of the 50's and 60's. Is there a subscription service so I don't miss anything else from these two?

Dmitri Tymoczko - Fools And Angels Given that prog rock is respectable now it was only natural for composers to start reverse engineering it for the concert hall. While Tymoczko seems to lean more toward Gentle Giant than my beloved King Crimson in his listening habits, this collection is a wild ride of outré harmonies and adventurous textures. He also makes a convincing stab at a Scott Johnson-like approach to field recordings in Let The Bodies Hit The Floor, which uses audio from This American Life.

Living Large

Even given what I said above, there are still many new works - and old works discovered - for larger forces. Here are three of the best. 

Michael Hersch - End Stages and Violin Concerto With Images From A Closed Ward immediately establishing Hersch as a striking architect of darkness for string quartet, this album shows that he can think big as well. The Concerto is a gnarly and gripping piece, with a performance by violinist Patricia Kopatchinskaja and the International Contemporary Ensemble that will be hard to better. End Stages is featured in a live performance by the legendary Orpheus Chamber Orchestra and finds them delivering the eight short movements with authority, letting the emotionally probing writing shine. I have a feeling there will be more impressive work to come from Hersch.

Florence Price: Violin Concertos Inclusion is paramount on all sides of the concert stage and part of the road to parity is righting wrongs of the past - which is why the rediscovery of these major works by Price, an African-American woman who died in 1953, is so welcome. Albany Records, which has been championing American music for decades, is the perfect label to release Price's music, allowing her to enter the catalog alongside her peers. And this recording, with the violin of Er-Gene Kahng and the Janacek Philharmonic conducted by Ryan Cockerham, makes a more than persuasive case for these sweeping, tuneful pieces. They should be performed often, perhaps paired with a work by Dvorak, who reliably packs concert halls and famously remarked, "The future music of this country must be founded upon what are called the Negro melodies. This must be the real foundation of any serious and original school of composition to be developed in the United States."

Daniel Bjarnason - Collider As demonstrated on last year's Recurrence, also performed by the excellent Iceland Symphony Orchestra, Bjarnason is a master of mood expressed in orchestral form. Could these pieces work as electronic soundscapes? Certainly - but the combination of his synthetic sensibility with the organic, analog sounds of the symphony is sublime. His soundtrack to Under The Tree, a 2017 Icelandic film nominated for an Oscar, was also released this year and is more than worthy of investigation.

Find selections from most of these albums (save Aizuri Quartet and The Hands Free) in this playlist or below. You may also find something to love in the Of Note In 2018 (Classical) playlist, which is a wider selection of what came out this year. Finally, I've collected many of the Grammy nominees in the Classical category here.

You may also enjoy:
Best Of 2018: The Top 25 
Best Of 2017: Classical
Best Of 2016: Classical
Best Of 2015: Classical and Composed

Best Of The Rest Of 14: Classical & Composed

I found time to write about only a few of the things I listened to in this realm throughout the course of the year. This wrap up includes those recordings and some of the many others of note.

Glenn Kotche took his compositions to new heights on Adventureland, really finding his voice outside of Wilco. It's a delightful and mysterious collection, more than living up to its title. 

Brooklyn Rider introduced me to the music of shakuhachi virtuoso Kojiro Umezaki a few years ago and I was grateful when (Cycles) came out earlier this year, collecting his emotionally charged and formally adventurous compositions.

The dog days of summer were enlivened by another wide-ranging installment of the American Composers Orchestra's Orchestra Underground series, Tech & Techno, which featured polished new compositions by a number of young composers. That album led me to Stereo Is King, a great collection of witty and fascinating work by Mason Bates, and I was glad for the pointer. 

Talea Ensemble is one of the finest new music groups in the country, if not the world. A new album by them should be a cause for celebration, and it is, for me at least. I just wish a few more people would come to the party - you don't know what you're missing. Their latest release, A Menacing Plume, focuses on the spellbinding music of Rand Steiger, an American composer and teacher who is probably more forward-thinking than some of the younger writers on the Tech & Techno Album. His use of electronics is seamless and completely assured. Like Varese, he's done his experimenting before composing his music. Talea Ensemble has chosen five of his chamber works and they're often sleek and purposeful constructions, with some of the sense of wonder Boulez inspires in his later pieces. 

Thanks to a terrific and dimensional recording and the utter conviction of Talea's players along with conductor James Baker, these are likely to be definitive recordings of these colorful works. I'll not soon forget the nimble woodwind playing or the physicality of Elizabeth Weisser's viola - you can feel the gut of the strings and the air in the resonating chamber when she plays. Marvelous. Special mention has to made of Ben Reimer's dazzling percussion on Elusive Peace which finds him playing the highly structured parts with ease and lightness of touch. Like the album as a whole, everything feels very naturalistic. Talea has no doubts about the worth of Steiger's music and neither will you after hearing this album.

I've had an ear out for Anna Thorvaldsdottir's music since Rhizoma came out a few years ago. The music on that collection was so intriguing yet also so reserved as to almost vanish as you listened. This year Deutsche Grammophon released Aerial, featuring six recent (2011-2013) works which hang together more like a concept album than a recital. This is bold music, equal parts beauty and terror, and it has a strong theatrical bent. Unusually, Thorvaldsdottir is credited with mixing, editing and production on several tracks - she obviously knows how to make things sound the way she wants. And it pays off - you'll be pulled through the album almost in a state of suspense.

Speaking of bold music, any composition by Mario Diaz de Leon is bound to make a strong first impression. His work in the drone-metal arena has left him unafraid of volume and power, but it's the finesse with which he deploys them in his concert music that makes it resonate beyond the first hearing. His piece, The Soul Is The Arena, is a highlight of There Never Is No Light, the extraordinary debut album by Joshua Rubin, a clarinetist and a founding member of the International Contemporary Ensemble. I doubt very highly that there is a better clarinet player in the new music world today and the ease with which he navigates Diaz de Leon's demanding work, and that of Mario Davidovsky and the other composers featured, is astounding. This is a signature release and one that will serve as an excellent introduction, should you need one, to both Rubin and some important composers.

The quantity of both stages and performance time for large-scale contemporary stage works is shrinking in the U.S. However, that doesn't stop composers from thinking big. A new release from Nonesuch featuring Louis Andriessen's La Commedia addresses this issue head on by allowing you to bring the performance, in the form of a film, into your home. That the film is directed by Hal Hartley in sumptuous black and white only sweetens the deal. While the music is often beautiful and creatively sets the words of the Bible, Dante, and others to make up a new narrative, there is a certain lack of dynamics overall, which I don't recall from Andriessen's other music. This makes La Commedia somewhat less than involving when just listened to. It really is ideally enjoyed as a visual experience - but how many people will take the time to get the most out it? All I can say is that it's worth it and kudos to all who made this realization possible.

Christopher Tignor's Core Memory Unwound is one of my favorite albums of our short century. While none of his subsequent releases have connected at that level, he can still surprise and intrigue with his singular style. Thunder Lay Down In The Heart has the feel of a theatrical piece, starting as it does with a scene-setting spoken word piece and moving through themes and variations featuring chamber instruments, electronics, and rock drums. I'm not to sure what it adds up to, but I can hear the sound of one of our more interesting musical minds at work.

Hauschka is the wizard of the prepared piano and also possesses a usually witty and warm compositional voice. Abandoned City features him at his chilliest, however, with tense rhythms and dense chord stabs. The album is as atmospheric as its title, and almost as urban. Thames Town suggests that a hip hop collaboration may be in Hauschka's future - I couldn't help but imagine how Pusha T would sound rapping over its spare instrumentation and dance beats.

Along with Joey Baron, Bobby Previte has been the go-to drummer at the intersection of the avant garde and jazz for at least a couple of decades. Terminals finds him stepping out as composer, interacting with other leading lights like Zeena Parkins (harp) and Nels Cline (busy man!) on a series of long, involving "concertos" for percussion and soloist. Y Percussion is the common denominator on this recording and, even if there is some meandering, each track is filled with drama and color.

Leif Ove Andsnes completed his Beethoven Journey this year and it would be hard to beat his recordings of these cornerstones of Romantic music. Not all Beethoven is equal to my ears, however, so if you buy aonly one disc in the series make sure it's the one containing Piano Concertos 2 and 4. This is old Ludwig at his most sparkling, especially in the 2nd Concerto, and the performances and recording are basically perfect. You can say that about the the final disc, which contained the 5th Concerto and the Choral Fantasy, except for the sparkling part. This is a side of Beethoven that doesn't move me, where his work sounds almost pro forma. But if you want to make up your own mind about this music, the Andsnes cycle is a great place to start.

Igor Stravinsky is of course known for his game-changing ballet scores and kaleidoscopic orchestrations. He also composed piano music throughout his career and now Jenny Lin has applied her masterful technique to a complete collection of those pieces - and I'm glad she did. 

Stravinsky knew his way around the piano, but Bach was the master of the keyboard and Igor Levit's new recording of the Partitas got a lot of people excited about this music again, including me. As part of my process of reviewing the album, I discovered Christiane Jaccottet's brilliant performance (on harpsichord instead of the modern piano employed by Levit) and that excited me even more.

Lou Harrison was an American composer who embraced exoticism and joy in equal measure. La Koro Sutro is one of his signature works and I was happy to see a new recording of it, although it maybe slightly more reserved than I'd like. If you can't find this one then by all means give it a listen. 

I'm not sure why Richard Reed Parry's Music For Heart & Breath excited me more in concert than in the fine recording on Deutsche Grammophon. Perhaps it was the stethoscopes or the fact that being on stage made the performers' hearts beat faster. In any case, approach it with fresh ears - you may like what you hear. There's definitely more here than just catnip for fans of Parry's band, Arcade Fire.

Bryce Dessner, guitarist for The National appears on Parry's album (indie rock mafia, anyone?) and also had his own work released under the imprimatur of DG. Unfortunately, St. Carolyn By The Sea, the piece in question, is a great argument against handing prestige recording contracts to any old rocker with some composing skills. Despite the expert husbandry of Andre de Ridder conducting the Copenhagen Philharmonic, nothing could make this music interesting. The recording is not a total waste as it includes a beautifully done concert arrangement of Jonny Greenwood's score from There Will Be Blood.

Dessner's dabblings stand in stark contrast to the rigorous work of Morton Feldman, whose String Quartet 1 was the subject of a definitive recording by the Flux Quartet, along with some of his other string music. I'm not sure this music as been played with more assurance, making this one of the most important string quartet albums in some time. If you like what you hear, check out their recording of Feldman's String Quartet 2, which goes on for over six hours.

On the lighter side, but perhaps no less important, the Nightingale String Quartet continued their traversal of the string quartets of Danish composer Rued Langgaard, who died in 1952 and whose music has been struggling for recognition ever since. Danes themselves, the members of Nightingale have a real sympathy for this music, but don't oversell it. Langgaard's writing has a lovely transparency, like looking through layers of water, and an easy melodicism that may come from some of Denmark's folk traditions. Kudos to the Nightingale for their three volume cycle, now complete, of these sweet sounds.

Soprano Anna Prohaska had a good idea, to create a recital of soldier's songs from composers as varied as Beethoven, Poulanc, Eisler and Ives, among others, and pulls it off beautifully. Eric Schneider's piano underpins her performance, which is emotionally open but never overwrought. Behind The Lines is an exemplar of the kind of intelligent programming we need more of in an age when so many works have been recorded over and over. '

When it comes to Richard Strauss, I tend to dislike the more popular works (all those big 19th century tone poems) but become extremely attached to his other music - the 20th century operas and his smaller works. Christiane Karg, a German soprano, did not have to work very hard to make me fall for Heimliche Aufforderung, her well-selected album of Strauss lieder. Her ease and warmth in these songs is matched by Malcolm Martineau's piano and, even without the rarer numbers, their performance more than justifies yet another Strauss release.

While 75% of baritone Gerald Finley's Shostakovich album is taken up with the Suite On Verses by Michelangelo Buonarroti, already beautifully sung by Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (among others), the real news is in his presentation of Six Romances on Verses by English Poets. I was not familiar with this song cycle, but it is prime Shostakovich and Finley inhabits these songs, more than ably accompanied by Thomas Sanderling and the Helsinki Philharmonic Orchestra.

Whew. How is a discerning listener to keep up with all this stuff? I Care If You Listen magazine was one way I found out about some of these releases, along with the NYT Classical Playlist. Let me know if you have any suggestions along those lines.

Still upcoming: Great EP's of 2014 and Out Of The Past.

Bach & Levit: Partita Animals

You walk in a room, your view of the gilt-framed paintings obscured by the crowd, some your friends, and others your enemies. The air is a haze of smoke, redolent of wine, beer, perfumes, powders and sweat. As you step further into the space, the gorgeous young thing at the harpsichord begins to play something insipid, hoping to impress the vapid young men gathered around the instrument. Why must this always happen? Why is it not possible to make an entrance accompanied by something worthy of your presence?

Pure conjecture, of course, but who's to say this sort of experience wasn't the impetus for J.S. Bach to come up with the spidery opening chord and dramatic beginning for his Partita No. 2? All I can say is that when I hear it, I sit up in my chair, a master of all I survey. However, not every performance of Partita No. 2 has that effect on me. As part of my preparation for reviewing Igor Levit's new recording of Bach's Partitas Nos. 1-6 I decided to focus on one of the six pieces and get to know it really well. So I made a playlist of more than a dozen complete recordings of No. 2, with a little lagniappe from the Swingle Singers's Jazz Sebastian Bach album thrown in for good measure.


As I listened, I started forming very definite opinions on how this music is best played. Naturally, like anything else open to interpretation, beauty will be in the ear of the beholder, but I do think that Bach should not be easy listening. Put another way, Bach is known for writing a large body of utile music, such as to accompany church services or festivals, or to aid in the teaching of music itself. However, I don't think he ever put quill to parchment with the hope of creating wallpaper. In fact, we know that Bach was using the Partitas to establish himself as a composer of keyboard works, being known mainly for his choral works at the time he published the first one. Making a strong statement would definitely be on his list of priorities with these works.

The first recording on my list was by the legendary harpsichordist Wanda Landowska and my first reaction was, "Wow, but no - too weird. Haunted house!" Gradually, however, I began to come around to it, and the harpsichord in general, embracing the weirdness. I've always found that instrument a little tough to take but for this project I wanted to really give it a chance. After all, the harpsichord was Bach's axe of choice back then. He completed the book of Partitas in 1730 and didn't hear a piano that he liked until 1747, when he took on the sideline of selling the newfangled keyboards for pioneering manufacturer Gottfried Silbermann.

Admittedly, the Landowska recording was a little rough and ready, being from the 30's and slightly distorted. In addition to Landowska, I also grabbed Ton Koopman's recording, which was certainly beautiful if a little straight laced in comparison. Finally I discovered Christiane Jaccottet's brilliant performance, which seems to find the perfect balance between sheer beauty, drama and strangeness all tied together with a slightly searching quality as if playing the music in the process of discovery. The recording is close but not clinical, revealing some of the mechanical noises of her keyboard, but not distractingly so. Listening to the three harpsichord recordings in my playlist pointed put a key interpretive choice: whether to spread or roll out that opening chord or to play the notes in unison. Landowska and Jaccottet both opt for the former and Koopman for the latter.

I do not know enough about it to understand why rolling the chord is optional, but I can say that I like it better in general, whether on piano or harpsichord. While there were some recordings I took to that didn't spread the chord, it's just a bolder statement and seems to put the partita on a different footing. So I had my harpsichord breakthrough thanks to this process, although listening to its brittle, metallic sound for extended periods still causes fatigue. But maybe that's as it should be. Are we supposed to sit and listen to all six partitas at once, with the endings running into the beginnings in unending stream of Baroque melodies? There's that wallpaper question again.

Speaking of which, as I compiled my list I came across the best-selling release by Simone Dinnerstein called Something Almost Being Said, which has music by both Bach and Schubert. While I have enjoyed some of her work, especially Night, her collaboration with Tift Merritt, I just can't tolerate her soft-edged, diffuse approach in this music. While I'm not an original instruments snob, I do think there is a point where a player can seem to be ignoring everything a composer ever hoped for their work. "The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there," L.P. Hartley wrote and I don't think its a bad thing to allow some of that foreign-ness to exist in very old music. Something almost being said? I think not. I think Bach was actually saying something, and we should respect him enough to let the music do the talking.

For a great recording on modern piano, Glenn Gould is still the man. Stylish and dynamic, he manages to put a personal stamp on it while maintaining a clarity in the counterpoint that keeps you anchored. And you should hear what he does with that opening, putting a little hesitation between the first note and the rest of the chord, making a new sequence. While known as a bit of an eccentric, Gould had nothing on Julius Katchen's entry which is full of blurred passages, odd dynamics and rushed tempos. I think Katchen took more liberties than the Swingle Singers. Call it sloppy if you will, but the sense of ownership is captivating. Another fine recording is by Eldar Djangirov, known mostly for jazzy crossover stuff but whose stunning precision and expert pedal work do perhaps the best job of translating the qualities of the harpsichord to the modern instrument. Style to spare, too.

My playlist also includes David Korevaar, Martha Argerich, Andras Schiff, Roger Woodward, Lydia Gorstein, and Vladimir Ashkenazy, all of which have something to recommend them, as well as one smoothed out movement on harpsichord by Hermann Stinders, which does not. As for the Swingle Singers, their take is kind of charming and while I wouldn't want a whole album of it, makes for a nice palate cleanser.

So how does Levit do, shouldering his way into a crowded subway car of fleet-fingered, often imperious masters of the keyboard? Born in Russia in 1987, Levit has been playing since the age of three but waited until last year to make his recorded debut, first as a soloist on a live recording of Eric Tanguy's In Terra Pace, and then on his own album of late piano sonatas by Beethoven. The Tanguy album didn't make much of a splash (the music isn't terribly distinctive) but the Beethoven album was greeted rapturously. While I'm not going to investigate fully, from what I can hear he more than holds his own in another packed field, displaying astonishing technical assurance, lyricism and drama. His Beethoven sings.

He brings many of those same qualities to his Bach, playing the partitas in a manner that is unapologetically modern while nodding to Baroque style. His tempos may be more measured than some yet his well-defined rhythmic sense keeps things moving, acknowledging the parlor dances that give some of the movements their structure. He makes the most of the piano's dynamic range while avoiding an excess of romanticism. That said, a clue to his approach lies in a Schumann quote in the liner notes where he says, referring to Bach, "... I myself confess my sins to this lofty figure every day, while seeking to purify and strengthen myself through him." Levit has some of this interiority as well, giving the sense of a personal journey through the partitas, rather than just a display of virtuosity.

Throughout, Levit opts more for beauty than for some of the alien aspects of the Baroque approach, but without any sense of soft-pedaling (literally or figuratively) the work of a genius from almost three centuries ago. It's almost a high wire act on Levit's part, balancing all of these elements, and his sense of command is such that you never worry about him falling. This is an excellent recording and confirms Levit's place at the front ranks of today's keyboard artists. He makes a number of subtle, intelligent decisions and executes them with flair. If I would like to see him use more imagination when it comes to record-making I also understand his need to get some major repertoire on the books at this stage of his career. In the end, while Jaccottet might have the edge with Bach himself, I don't doubt that Levit would also get a nod of approval from the old master as he entered that imagined party seeking friends and recognition.