Dmitri Shostakovich: 24 Preludes and Fugues
Keith Jarrett
- CD 1
- 24 Preludes and Fugues op. 87
- 1I C Major08:11
- 2II A Minor02:10
- 3III G Major03:29
- 4IV E Minor07:24
- 5V D Major04:05
- 6VI B Minor05:22
- 7VII A Major03:11
- 8VIII F Sharp Minor06:21
- 9IX E Major03:48
- 10X C Sharp Minor06:19
- 11XI B Major03:21
- 12XII G Sharp Minor06:52
- CD 2
- 1XIII F Sharp Major07:03
- 2XIV E Flat Minor07:03
- 3XV D Flat Major04:20
- 4XVI B Flat Minor08:59
- 5XVII A Flat Major05:14
- 6XVIII F Minor04:35
- 7XIX E Flat Major04:17
- 8XX C Minor08:05
- 9XXI B Flat Major04:01
- 10XXII G Minor05:09
- 11XXIII F Major05:28
- 12XXIV D Minor10:24
Stereophile, Recording of the month
CD Review, Disc of the month
Stereoplay, Die Perfekte
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 still 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.
John Rockwell, The New York Times
The Shostakovich is, quite simply, one of the touchstones of the keyboard literature, and the value of Jarrett’s committed advocacy of this piece cannot be overestimated [...] He really has done an outstanding job: listening to him is simply a joy.
David Hurwitz, Fanfare
Although he has made several classical recordings in the past few years, Jarrett’s ability to yoke his unique interpretive talents to Shostakovich’s comes as a marvellous surprise, his playing so superlative and his emotional response so faithful that there’s never any doubt that it’s the music of Shostakovich shining through. The potentially daunting inner contrapuntal lines of the fugues are always kept clearly delineated by Jarrett’s superb technique.
Joey Rand, Los Angeles Reader
Those who have admired Keith Jarrett’s piano improvisations will find him equally impressive in Dmitri Shostakovich’s 24 Preludes and Fugues […] His technique is what you notice first; he makes things look easy that cost other pianists – good ones – a lot of obvious effort. The interpretation is individual but not eccentric; the composer and performer have a meeting of minds with exciting results.
Joseph McLellan, The Washington Post
Jarrett’s performance is outstanding: for its interpretive logic, congruity, and continuity; for the unpretentious, non-idiosyncratic playing style; and for its technical supremacy. […] Jarrett’s playing is astonishingly clear; each line is a well-defined entity without any undue or ill-conceived dominance of the other fugal voices. […] The ECM engineering adds or takes away nothing. The room perfectly suits the instrument. What we hear is true, uncoloured, un-messed-around-with piano sound.
David Vernier, CD Review
Jarrett gewinnt in diesem Werkzyklus den jeweiligen Impuls aus der dialektischen Spannung von jazzoiden und romantisch-virtuosen Elementen. Ungeachtet der unterschiedlichen Dichtegrade von Werk zu Werk werden unerhörte Klangdelikatessen vermittelt: leichtfüßig, voller Charme und Witz, nie triefend im Gefühlsausdruck, in Geschmack, Rhythmus, Dynamik und formaler Sicht glänzend exponiert. Zu bewundern bleibt allemal: der Aberwitz an Geläufigkeit und brisanter Geschwindigkeit; die ästhetische Verliebtheit in Klänge und Melodien; das knifflige Ausbalancieren von Leichtgewicht und rhythmisch komplizierter Konstruktion; die ausladende Klangschichtung und chromatische Kolorierung horizontal wie vertikal. Keith Jarrett lässt keinen Zweifel dran, dass nicht einmal russische Künstler die Eigenart jener Musik besser erfasst haben als er [...]. Der Amerikaner Jarrett ist unbefangen genug, etwas von der aufgehobenen Trennung von abendländischer, außereuropäischer, primitiver und Jazzmusik in sein Spiel einfließen zu lassen. Er sucht die Beziehungen zwischen den Weltkulturen in sein Denken einzubringen. Daraus erwächst seine Lebendigkeit: als mehrdimensionaler Mensch sich nicht in eine eindimensionale Künstlerrolle drängen zu lassen.
Peter Fuhrmann, Die Zeit
Jarrett [...] stellt sich der Musik als Medium zur Verfügung und musiziert mit einer Gelassenheit, die gefangen nimmt. So bekommen diese Stücke etwas Zeitlos-Schwebendes, gleichzeitig aber haben sie etwas Zielstrebiges: Schostakowitsch hat nicht in sich geschlossene Werke wie Bach komponiert, sondern ein vom [...] Anfang bis zur [...] Schlussfuge konzipiertes, zusammenhängendes Ganzes. [...] Allein mit sich selbst, im Raum absoluter Musik bewegt sich Schostakowitsch; und das trotz oder gerade wegen der kontrapunktischen Beschränkungen in den Fugen mit einer inneren Freiheit, die keine plakativen Ausbrüche nötig hat. Und genau das bringt Jarrett herüber.
Kalle Burmester, Fono Forum
Jarrett begegnet dem genialen Zyklus mit fast schon sklavischer Texttreue, größtmöglicher Deutlichkeit im Anschlag und kontemplativer Zurückhaltung. Das hindert ihn zwar nicht, die bizarren Momente mit gehöriger Verve auszuspielen, gewürzt mit einer unvergleichlich pikanten Geläufigkeit, dass einem Hören und Sehen vergeht, Tenor seiner Aufnahme aber ist Nachdenklichkeit. Sie offenbart die Labilität des Künstlers Schostakowitsch – gerade dort, wo er sich augenscheinlich auf den trittsicheren Boden der Vergangenheit zurückzieht. Mit dieser Einspielung schlägt Jarrett die inzwischen etwas angestaubte Konkurrenz [...] nicht nur mühelos aus dem Feld, er setzt Maßstäbe für jede künftige Beschäftigung mit Schostakowitschs Klaviermusik.
Roman Hinke, Neue Zeitschrift für Musik
Keith Jarrett s’engage dans un corps à corps forcené avec son piano, au seul profit de la clarté polyphonique et du pur énoncé. Toujours surprenant, d’une maîtrise technique époustouflante dans la durée, d’une flamme brûlant sous la cendre, l’ensemble s’écoute sans une seconde d’ennui, pour ce qu’il est un monstre d’ambiguïté stylistique.
Anne Rey, Le Monde
In time for Dmitri Shostakovich’s 100th birthday on September 25, ECM reissues Keith Jarrett’s recording of the 24 Preludes and Fugues for piano. Originally recorded in 1991 it counts amongst the most significant of Jarrett’s interpretations of music from the ‘classical’ tradition.
As the pianist said at the time, “When I first saw these pieces in a music shop, I knew I wanted to play them. I recognised the language. But when I started playing them, they were so close to me that I knew I had to record them.” He began including Shostakovich pieces in his recitals in 1985, alongside works by Beethoven, Scarlatti and Bach, and his Shostakovich recording followed his acclaimed account of the two books of The Well-Tempered Clavier.
There was a musical-historical logic to the choice, as well: it had been a performance of Bach’s “48” at a piano competition in Lepizig in 1950 that inspired Shostakovich to write his own cycle of preludes and fugues.
“It didn’t feel like I was playing someone else’s music,“ said Jarrett of his first encounter with the op. 87. “[The pieces] are coming from some strange quirky place that I’m familiar with. They’re not ‘pianistic’ in the traditional way...”
In the CD booklet Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich writes that “Shostakovich tried to escape the distressing historicity of the artist delinquent in his socialist-realist function by espousing the hermetic artistic realm of Bach’s counterpoint – where he could forget his painful role of the voluntary/involuntary state composer. (...) Shostakovich’s cycle offers itself as the only remake of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier that can be taken seriously.”
Jarrett believed that any programmatic intention that Shostakovich brought to the work dissolved in the sheer pleasure of creation and performance, the composer being also a considerable pianist. “These preludes and fugues are almost like x-rays of thought”, Jarrett told Gramophone. “I think in some of them the music just took him over. Sometimes from a studied beginning it all starts to blossom.” This is emphatically true of, for example, No 15 in D-Flat Major, whose fugue has a freely associative development which Wilfred Mellers describes as “scarily crazy as Bedlam” in its metrical dislocation. Yet its jagged trajectory will not seem unfamiliar to those who have experienced the thornier episodes of Jarrett’s Radiance for instance, or the newly released album The Carnegie Hall Concert (a New York recording of solo improvisations from September 26, 2005, missing Shostakovich’s 99th birthday by mere hours...)
As for the overall merits of Shostakovich’s Opus 87, Professor Mellers has summed them up well in the liner notes: “If there is a single work among his large output that assures us that Shostakovich is among the great composers nurtured by our bruised and battered century, this collection of Preludes and Fugues is it. One might go so far as to say that it places him among the supreme composers in any phase of Europe’s history. Listen and you will hear.”
As the pianist said at the time, “When I first saw these pieces in a music shop, I knew I wanted to play them. I recognised the language. But when I started playing them, they were so close to me that I knew I had to record them.” He began including Shostakovich pieces in his recitals in 1985, alongside works by Beethoven, Scarlatti and Bach, and his Shostakovich recording followed his acclaimed account of the two books of The Well-Tempered Clavier.
There was a musical-historical logic to the choice, as well: it had been a performance of Bach’s “48” at a piano competition in Lepizig in 1950 that inspired Shostakovich to write his own cycle of preludes and fugues.
“It didn’t feel like I was playing someone else’s music,“ said Jarrett of his first encounter with the op. 87. “[The pieces] are coming from some strange quirky place that I’m familiar with. They’re not ‘pianistic’ in the traditional way...”
In the CD booklet Hans-Klaus Jungheinrich writes that “Shostakovich tried to escape the distressing historicity of the artist delinquent in his socialist-realist function by espousing the hermetic artistic realm of Bach’s counterpoint – where he could forget his painful role of the voluntary/involuntary state composer. (...) Shostakovich’s cycle offers itself as the only remake of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier that can be taken seriously.”
Jarrett believed that any programmatic intention that Shostakovich brought to the work dissolved in the sheer pleasure of creation and performance, the composer being also a considerable pianist. “These preludes and fugues are almost like x-rays of thought”, Jarrett told Gramophone. “I think in some of them the music just took him over. Sometimes from a studied beginning it all starts to blossom.” This is emphatically true of, for example, No 15 in D-Flat Major, whose fugue has a freely associative development which Wilfred Mellers describes as “scarily crazy as Bedlam” in its metrical dislocation. Yet its jagged trajectory will not seem unfamiliar to those who have experienced the thornier episodes of Jarrett’s Radiance for instance, or the newly released album The Carnegie Hall Concert (a New York recording of solo improvisations from September 26, 2005, missing Shostakovich’s 99th birthday by mere hours...)
As for the overall merits of Shostakovich’s Opus 87, Professor Mellers has summed them up well in the liner notes: “If there is a single work among his large output that assures us that Shostakovich is among the great composers nurtured by our bruised and battered century, this collection of Preludes and Fugues is it. One might go so far as to say that it places him among the supreme composers in any phase of Europe’s history. Listen and you will hear.”
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