Bach Concertos pour clavecin n 1-3 Swiatkiewicz Valova Nowak-Pokrzywinska Olszewski Pokrzywinski

C’est un peu une mode : considérer toute œuvre de Bach comme devant être jouée à un par partie. La musique vocale y gagne parfois – voyez les expériences de Joshua Rifkin dans les Cantates – mais la musique instrumentale ? Voici donc que Marcin Swiatkiewicz ose dénuder les trois grands Concertos pour un clavecin : les polyphonies n’y gagnent rien, sinon la maigreur du trait de crayon, mais aussi sa grisaille, car avec deux violons, un alto et un violoncelle les couleurs sont restreintes et les émotions itou. Reste la vivacité du mouvement, la concentration du propos, la précision d’ensemble évidemment immanquable. Cela s’écoute, interroge et puis s’oublie, expérience limite qui justement ne va plus loin que celle-ci. On pourra se laisser tenter… (Discophilia - Artalinna.com) (Jean-Charles Hoffelé)

After all, it was he who composed the first harpsichord concerto. For me – as for most harpsichordists – his concertos were the first works with orchestra that I played, still as a student. Over the years I approached them over and over again, interpreting them on different harpsichords and with different ensembles: large and small, of period and contemporary instruments. I even once experimented with performing these concertos on an electric Rhodes piano. (...) Though the Bach harpsichords have been the subject of excellent musicological dissertations, finding a suitable instrument is by no means easy. During rehearsals we have had access to three very different ones, and none of them could necessarily be called “Bachesque”. It soon became clear that the D Major Concerto with its ludic third movement can best be rendered on a Flemish instrument, whereas the sophisticated Concerto in E Major sounds fine on a copy of a French harpsichord, and the monumental D Minor Concerto will benefit from choosing a German instrument with a 16-foot register, which (of the three instruments available) is most likely the closest we can come to Bach’s own preferences.