Perahia vs. Schiff: Dueling Bach Partitas by Jewish Pianists
By Benjamin Ivry September 29, 2009
Before his much-anticipated October 23 Carnegie Hall recital, of music by Bach, Beethoven, and Schumann, the magisterial Jewish American pianist Murray Perahia is releasing a new CD on Sony Classical of three of the six Bach keyboard Partitas, Nos. 1, 5 & 6, completing the set begun last year with his CD of Partitas 2, 3, & 4. Perahia’s meltingly lyrical approach is distinguished by an ineffable quality of love, something like the tenderness found in the playing of his mentor Mieczysław Horszowski, but Perahia is a finer, more consistently rewarding pianist than the sometimes uneven Horszowski.
The Bach keyboard Partitas, previously recorded with over-adulated neurosis by Glenn Gould and two-ton doggedness by Rosalyn Tureck, are now in the hands of mature, full-hearted virtuosos like Perahia and the Hungarian Jewish pianist András Schiff who has also just released a 2-CD set of the complete Partitas on ECM.
Schiff’s performance may reveal a harder-edged, more uncompromising rigor than Perahia’s version, but is no less urgently passionate. Schiff’s highly original Beethoven sonata cycle, also on ECM, channels the composer and makes it clear that, as with Bach, Beethoven’s music can express a truculent, mordant personality. Unafraid to express these and other truths as he sees them, Schiff’s Bach is the ideal complement to Perahia’s, and all lovers of piano music will want to have both.
Watch András Schiff play Partita No. 2 in C Minor BWV 826 below.
Catch Murray Perahia live in recital in Vancouver (Oct 4); Denver (Oct 8); San Francisco (Oct. 11); Los Angeles (Oct. 13); Washington, DC (Oct. 17); Durham, NC (Oct. 20); in his current tour leading up to his October 23 Carnegie Hall performance.
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning journalism this Passover.
In this age of misinformation, our work is needed like never before. We report on the news that matters most to American Jews, driven by truth, not ideology.
At a time when newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall. That means for the first time in our 126-year history, Forward journalism is free to everyone, everywhere. With an ongoing war, rising antisemitism, and a flood of disinformation that may affect the upcoming election, we believe that free and open access to Jewish journalism is imperative.
Readers like you make it all possible. Right now, we’re in the middle of our Passover Pledge Drive and we still need 300 people to step up and make a gift to sustain our trustworthy, independent journalism.
Make a gift of any size and become a Forward member today. You’ll support our mission to tell the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
Only 300 more gifts needed by April 30
