Grasshopper

I added an extra "own," and anyway I’ll take this opportunity to say that no, unfortunately, I haven't seen Fossati live in ages. It's a matter of finances: classical concerts, from this perspective, have the best quality/price ratio possible.

I don't understand what is wrong with that expression of mine. Perhaps it's a bit of a strong statement, bordering on paradox, but the meaning was what I explained, and you understood it very well. An illustrious musicologist whose name I can't recall (perhaps Roman Vlad, but I wouldn't want to say something foolish) claims that music owes as much to Bach as a religion does to its founder, meaning that certain rules are established from Bach and will remain so forever. This is what I meant when I said it is baroque only from a temporal perspective. However, regarding the influence of historical periods on his art, and on anyone's, I fully agree with you, and I've also discussed this extensively right here on Debaser regarding Bach's Orchestral Suites (if you're interested, see the review). Perhaps I should have said that Bach was simultaneously a timeless genius and a genius of his time; nonetheless, I think at this point we understand each other. And in any case, thank you for bringing great music back to Debaser: it was needed.

I’m not joking, and I believe I’ve been quite clear, but let me explain better. Of course, Bach's compositions are FORMALLY baroque in general, although you can find some "unicum" that are no laughing matter, like the Well-Tempered Clavier, The Art of Fugue, and the Goldberg Variations themselves, which are quite difficult to categorize in a specific historical period. CONCEPTUALLY, his music is absolute and transcends the limits of his time. It’s obvious that his timeless genius expressed itself through the usual allemandes, passacaglias, sarabandes, gavottes, in short, the repertoire of the era. It would have been something if he had started composing typical Beethovenian scherzi, Wagnerian symphonic poems, or Schumannian fantasies... But more than form, content is what matters, and you can shape that into more current forms, which is rather unfeasible, for example, with a Telemann, who was also a contemporary of Bach; it’s already quite challenging with a Handel, another contemporary: one of the few to manage it convincingly was Keith Jarrett with his piano version of the suites, of which there is an excellent review (not mine) here on Debaser.

Corifeo has already mentioned it, but I’ll reiterate. I would say that Johann Sebastian Bach is baroque only because he was born in 1685. In reality, his music, with a few exceptions, is timeless, absolute in the etymological sense of the term, and as such, it lends itself to being performed with any instrument. Glenn Gould, along with the often underrated Rosalyn Tureck, have extensively demonstrated that the piano works wonderfully (for the record, I also distinctly prefer Gould's 1981 version to that of 1955). But there are also those who have proposed Bach in a jazz version (Swingle Singers, Trio Louissier, and even Jethro Tull, who aren’t a jazz band either) and the results are more than commendable. I wouldn’t be surprised if Bach could withstand, without too many distortions, the impact of a hard rock or funky-soul interpretation: his musical architectures are practically indestructible, and it’s no coincidence that they retain their modernity after 300 years. If one wants to be historically rigorous, there is no doubt that the most suitable instrument to appreciate Bach "as it was" is the harpsichord. There are also memorable interpretations for this instrument: from the historical ones by Wanda Landowska (an absolutist: she would never have played it on a piano!) to the more recent ones by Gustav Leonhardt, Ton Koopman, and Bob Van Asperen, to which I would add the excellent yet forgotten Christiane Jaccottet. I am not familiar with this one by Ottavio Dantone, but I trust some of his excellent baroque interpretations as a conductor (for example, Corelli's Concerti Grossi).

To quote an expression I've read somewhere, it seems to me that even the old Boss, whose artistic and intellectual honesty I have no doubts about, is behaving like an expert chef who now only knows how to prepare a certain type of dish and, as soon as he has some passable ingredients at hand, serves it up to us with his usual skill. All this, in addition to the usual value of the review, prompts me to check if this time the recipe has turned out well. To be honest, those called "Devil's Dust" and especially "Magic" seemed rather bland to me, but nevertheless always respectable.

Sometimes the "duplicates" on debaser, which are quite rare in the realm of classical music, have the merit of leading us to reviews of the same music that, for some reason, we missed at the time. And in cases like this, losing them forever would truly be a shame. P.S. If you're interested in Diana Krall, check out my review; I believe it's currently the only one.

I completely agree with what Contemplazione said, with the slight difference that my favorites are equally the K 219 and the K 216, with the K 218 coming in right after. It's curious to note the parallel between the 5 violin concertos by Mozart and the 5 piano concertos by Beethoven: in both cases, the last three are of a higher level than the first two, but while there is a considerable gap in time between Beethoven's, in this case, all the works were composed in the same year. But from a genius like Mozart, one can certainly expect such a rapid evolution. In addition to the already mentioned performances, I suggest the less known but delightful one by the excellent Josef Suk with the Prague Chamber Orchestra. The Andante of the Sinfonia Concertante alone would be enough to demolish the now worn-out cliché of "cheerful Mozart," assuming there are still people who judge Mozart as frivolous and light: his melancholy opens up pre-Romantic depths, I would dare say pre-Schubertian.

It can indeed be said that this is one of the most successful live performances of Italian singer-songwriter music; in fact, both this and the second one are, and even more so the third (from 2005, called "Tour acustico"). A natural sound, yet meticulously refined in every little detail. Like the equally excellent "Concerti" by Paolo Conte, it has the power to perfectly recreate the atmosphere of the theater on record, which I personally much prefer to that of stadium or arena concerts.

Vortex, what you gave (to love love and to hate hate) seems to me an excellent definition of political correctness, but it has nothing to do with what I would like to see in discussions, be it on TV, on Debaser, or anywhere else, which is simply called good manners. Like (to give a random example) not calling someone a fool just because they don't share your attitude towards someone else. Then, of course, you are completely free not to appreciate good manners: in Italy, they are not loved at all, not even (indeed, I would say especially) among the upper echelons of power.

Pure and honest rock 'n' roll, indeed. Nothing more, aside from two quality peaks that couldn't be more different: the languid "Heaven" and the tight "Run to You."