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Having paid tribute to Johann Sebastian Bach in a sequence of New Series recordings of the Well-tempered Clavier, the Goldberg Variations and the French Suites, Keith Jarrett now turns his attention to Bach's near contemporary, Georg Friedrich Händel. The project, in fact, has been in preparation for a long time; Jarrett's liner note informs us that he first began to record Händel's keyboard suites some 20 years ago. The present recording is of particular interest for a number of reasons and not least because it is the first of his albums of baroque music to feature the piano - as opposed to harpsichord - since Book One of the Well-tempered Clavier was issued in 1988. Where, in his Bach recordings, Keith Jarrett has striven to obliterate his musical personality ('This music does not need my assistance'), he feels Händel's 'basically unknown' solo keyboard music needs a measure of special pleading. And, though he has gone to 'the least tampered with editions' of the suites in the interests of 'correctness both musicological and musical', in making the case for their reassessment he permits himself some interpretive leeway in matters of tempi and phrasing. The result is an extremely attractive reading of seven of the Suites for Keyboard that can perhaps be more readily related - particularly in the adagio movements, where Jarrett takes full advantage of the lyrical warmth and textural richness of the material - to aspects of the pianist's improvised recordings than can his Bach interpretations. (Or, to put it another way, these pieces, in the right hands, retain the freshness of improvisation). 'Händel was a keyboardist, ' Jarrett notes, 'and his keyboard works should occupy a higher position in our awareness than they do.' Keith Jarrett's playing on this recording invites comparison with his interpretation of Dmitri Shostakovich's 24 Preludes and Fugues Op. 87 (a work that creates a bridge, via Bachian inspirational sources, from the baroque to the 'modern'). Jarrett's Shostakovich prompted John Rockwell to declare, in the pages of the New York Times: 'With this recording, Mr. Jarrett has finally staked an indisputable claim to distinction in the realm of classical music. Even in our multicultural, multistylistic age, it is extremely difficult to cross over from one field to another. Mr. Jarrett, having long since established himself in jazz, can now be called a classical pianist of the first rank.'
Keith Jarrett - Piano
【曲目】
Georg Friedrich Händel - Suite HWV 452 in G Minor
01. Allemande
02. Courante
03. Sarabande
04. Gigue
Georg Friedrich Händel - Suite HWV 447 in D Minor
05. Allemande
06. Courante
07. Sarabande
08. Gigue
Georg Friedrich Händel - Suites II No. 7 HWV 440 in B-flat major
09. Allemande
10. Courante
11. Sarabande
12. Gigue
Georg Friedrich Händel - Suites I No. 8 HWV 433 in F minor
13. Prélude
14. Courante
15. Sarabande
16. Gigue
Georg Friedrich Händel - Suites I No. 2 HWV 427 in F major
17. Adagio
18. Allegro
19. Adagio
20. Allegro
Georg Friedrich Händel - Suites I No. 4 HWV 429 in E minor
21. Adagio
22. Allemande
23. Courante
24. Sarabande
25. Gigue
Georg Friedrich Händel - Suites I No. 1 HWV 426 in A major
26. Prélude
27. Allemande
28. Courante
29. Gigue
