JS Bach • Thomas Oehler JS Bach: Partitas (arr. Thomas Oehler); Thomas Oehler: Brook of Light Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble; The Glenn Gould School/Trevor Pinnock Linn Records CKD730 69:47 mins
Evidence from the catalogue confirms how JS Bach’s six partitas, issued collectively in 1731 as the first part of his Clavier-Übung, have proven equally attractive to keyboard players and arrangers. In taking his place among the latter category, Thomas Oehler has ‘re-imagined’ this music for chamber orchestra. His collaborators include an ensemble comprising 14 students from London’s Royal Academy of Music and five from The Glenn Gould School at The Royal Conservatory of Music in Toronto. These impeccable young musicians are directed by Trevor Pinnock, whose credentials as a Bach interpreter are internationally recognised.
As is so often the case with arrangements of familiar repertoire, particularly canonical Germanic tonal music, a change of performing media reveals the works anew. Oehler’s revelations include wonderful organ-like sonorities in the opening of the Sinfonia of Partita 2. Equally arresting is the Praeambulum of Partita 5, both in its opening tutti and subsequent melodic doublings. The final Gigue of this partita is transformed into a standalone symphonic movement. Plaudits to the wind players whose delicately nuanced lines are real gems, as the Sarabande of Partita 1 demonstrates.
These arrangements are products of their time, as Stokowski’s were in the interwar years of the 20th century. Oehler’s craft reveals the impact of historically informed performance, through careful phrasing and a string sound which eschews continuous vibrato. Nonetheless, his instrumentarium seems a little conservative, even in his own Brook of Light which brings the album to its thoughtful conclusion.
Ingrid Pearson