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Track(s) taken from CDA67324

Prelude and Fugue in D major, BWV532

composer

Nikolai Demidenko (piano)
Forde Abbey, Somerset, United Kingdom
Release date: February 2002
Total duration: 25 minutes 18 seconds

Cover artwork: Front illustration by Donya Claire James (b?)
 

Other recordings available for download

David Goode (organ)
Christopher Herrick (organ)

Reviews

‘Nikolai Demidenko performs all the music here with admirable devotion … the playing throughout this enterprising recital cannot be faulted’ (BBC Music Magazine)

‘Demidenko plays them all with great panache and limitless technical command, clearly relishing the vast array of colour that Busoni's fertile imagination encourages’ (The Guardian)

‘[Demidenko's] performances capture the smouldering long lines and Gothic grandeur inherent in Busoni's textural transformations of the originals’ (International Record Review)

‘Enthusiastically recommended’ (Fanfare, USA)

‘From the opening notes of the Fantasia, Adagio and Fugue with which the CD begins there is a lightness, vivacity and ease to Demidenko’s playing which engages the attention’ (Pianist)

‘Demidenko’s full-blooded readings of the D major Prelude and Fugue BWV 532 and the monumental D minor Chaconne from BWV 1004 have the necessary tingle factor, backed by sensational recorded sound’ (Music Week)

«Demidenko rend un somoptueux hommage à l’art de Busoni, dont ces compositions constituent elles-mêmes un vibrant hommage au génie de Bach» (Répertoire, France)

«Il [Nikolai Demidenko] possède une véritable affinité et une intelligence de cette musique, qui apparaît très claire, sinon toujours à son maximum d’éxpressivité. Voici une approche convaincante de ces transcriptions» (Classica, France)

„This is some of the most colossal piano playing I've ever heard. In its nobility, its grandeur, its multi-dimensionality and its astounding command of piano sonorities, it's worth the price of admission by itself“ (Piano, Germany)
Dating from 1709 or earlier, the D major Prelude and Fugue, BWV532 shares, with a number of other early (or early versions of) preludes and fugues, an inter-connecting adagio between the two. Here the structure is taken a stage further, with a free toccata (to announce the key) introducing a brisk patterned, rather Italian movement, before a markedly powerful sequence of harmony, with double pedal, to close. The Spielfuge, borrowing elements from Buxtehude, is chiefly remarkable for its unflagging energy and supremely virtuoso pedal part; surely it was this piece which inspired the contemporary comment that Bach’s feet flew across the pedals as birds on the wing.

from notes by Robin Langley © 1993

Datant de 1709 ou même avant, le Prélude et Fugue en ré majeur, BWV532 a en commun avec un certain nombre d’autres parmi les premiers préludes et fugues (ou les premières versions) un adagio reliant les deux parties. Ici le développement de la structure va plus loin avec une toccata libre (pour annoncer le ton) qui introduit un mouvement vif et orné, plutôt italien, avant de se terminer par une très puissante séquence d’harmonie, avec double pédale. L’énergie infatigable et sa partie de pédale suprêmement virtuose sont les deux caractéristiques remarquables de la Spielfuge, qui emprunte encore des éléments à Buxtehude; c’est sans aucun doute ce morceau qui a inspiré le commentaire contemporain que les pieds de Bach volaient sur les pédales comme des oiseaux en plein essor.

extrait des notes rédigées par Robin Langley © 1993
Français: Alain Midoux

D-Dur, BWV532, 1709 oder früher entstanden, hat es mit anderen frühen Präludien und Fugen (bzw. deren frühen Versionen) ein Adagio gemeinsam, das die beiden Teile verbindet. Hier geht es mit diesem Aufbau insofern einen Schritt weiter, als eine freie Tokkata (zur Einführung der Tonart) einen lebhaft gefügten, italienisch anmutenden Satz einleitet, ehe zum Abschluß eine betont eindrucksvolle harmonische Sequenz mit doppeltem Pedal erklingt. Die Spielfuge, die wiederum Stilelemente von Buxtehude aufgreift, ist insbesondere wegen ihrer nicht nachlassenden Energie und ihres überaus virtuosen Pedalparts bemerkenswert; gewiß war es dieses Stück, das zu dem zeitgenössischen Kommentar angeregt hat, Bachs Füße seien über die Pedale geeilt wie Vögel im Flug.

aus dem Begleittext von Robin Langley © 1993
Deutsch: Anne Steeb/Bernd Müller

Other albums featuring this work

Bach: Great Fantasias, Preludes & Fugues
CDD220622CDs Dyad (2 for the price of 1) — Download only
Bach: The Complete Organ Works
CDS44121/3616CDs Boxed set (at a special price) — Download only
Bach: The Complete Organ Works, Vol. 2
Studio Master: SIGCD802Download onlyStudio Master FLAC & ALAC downloads available
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