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Rating: For many, it is simply "the music of Quark". Some others are not content and call it "the music of Piero Angela," thus adding another two hundred years to our already seasoned science communicator, who soon enough will actually be a century old... Those who want to sound cultured throw out a laconic "It's Bach!", and they're partly right, although what they're really listening to is a group of jazz vocalists known in the '60s as the Swingle Singers, who, in an album with a significant title ("Jazz Sebastian Bach"), enjoyed substituting the instrumental parts of many Bach compositions with a weave of skillful vocalizations, with sometimes excellent results, as in what would later become the theme of Quark, that is, a serious and respectful version of the sublime "Air on the G String" by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Given the miraculous balance and the Olympian serenity of this piece of immortal music, one might be tempted to join those who say "It's Bach!" letting it fall from the sky like the fruit of a divine flash of genius, an absolute inspiration, ephemeral as happiness. But it's better to see things, to put it in union agency terms, "inserted in their context", if only to realize that the "Air" is just the most precious stone set in a complex and fascinating jewel like the Orchestral Suite No. 3, and that this jewel is part of a collection of well four Suites, of which the record in review contains the first three.
Accustomed as we are to imagine the massive head of Johann Sebastian Bach busy elaborating severe, geometric weavings of counterpoint, absolute and timeless music, we risk not understanding his "worldly" side, the man of his time, but it's precisely to this side that many original and excellently crafted works belong, among which the Orchestral Suites hold a prominent place. The model is undoubtedly that of the 17th-century Suite, also called "lullist" with reference to Giambattista Lulli, a court musician par excellence, better known as Jean-Baptiste Lully, partly because it was already very chic back then, but mostly because he was in the service of King Louis XVI of France. And the French Suite must have been very fashionable even in remote northern Germany if even the anything but frivolous Bach adopted its structure for his Suites, composed on the occasion of special celebrations or festivities, during which nobles, powerful people, courtiers, and various flatterers swarmed in salons dripping with blatant luxury (it was the full Baroque period), moving from one dance to another, and generally alternating the wilder ones (for the time, of course) with the sweeter and more sensual ones (for the time, this is even clearer). And it is precisely this succession of fast and slow pieces that we can find in the sequences of the Suites, sometimes even within the same movement. For example, in the "Minuets 1 and 2" from the first Suite, two different minuets face each other, one more agile and danceable, which opens and closes the piece, the other calmer, placed in the middle as a pause for reflection, or perhaps more prosaically designed to let the dancers rest. A common feature of the Suites is the Overture, whose purpose was to announce with a certain pomp the series of dances. Some sly minds have thought it appropriate to call the entire Suite an Overture, contributing to quite some confusion. It's more convenient to give this name to only the opening piece of each Suite, which is typically tripartite: a slow and majestic start, a lively central fugue, and a closing that reprises the initial theme. It's clear that in the central fugue Bach unleashes his contrapuntal genius with plots and overlaps that poor Lully couldn't even dream of, but otherwise, there's a certain fidelity to this fixed scheme, which, although repeating itself, does not in the least affect the personality of each Overture, which then reflects on the entire Suite.
Although approximately contemporary with the other two, the Suite No. 1 in C major BWV 1066 appears as the most archaic, the one in which the echoes of court music from the '600s are most evident. From the Overture onwards, the strings triumph, whose blend with the harpsichord gives a rich sound, capable alone of evoking the luxury of the ballrooms for which this music was born. The fugue part has an abrupt start, which unsettles the listener, practically without a break from the preceding theme. Almost as suddenly, it fades away and gives space to a peremptory closure. This seemingly forced embedding of the fugue within the Overture repeats in all the Suites but does not at all detract from their beauty, in fact, it further enlivens them. Other notable pieces are the brief and delicate "Forlana", the already mentioned two "Minuets" and the two elegant "Passepieds", whose name derives from the fact that at a certain moment in this dance the feet of the two dancers touched, which for some was unheard-of lasciviousness. Sometimes in the central parts of these dances, the strings fall silent and Bach displays an unexpected musical humor with delightful dialogues between the winds, in particular between the serious mutterings of the bassoon and the piercing, sharp chanting of the oboe.
The Suite No. 2 in B minor BWV 1067 sees the flute as the main protagonist, with a role so central as to somehow anticipate future concerts for this instrument. Of the three, it is overall the one that already from the outset seemed conceived to go well beyond its immediate purpose as music for grand occasions, although in the end the absolutely deserved fate of becoming a stable part of the concert repertoire would unite all the Suites. The Overture itself, compared to the others, is a bit less imposing but melodically richer and more interesting. Many precious and brief examples of intimacy bordering on chamber music are scattered throughout this Suite, starting with the hypnotic "Rondeau", with a splendid duet between flute and orchestra, moving to the contemplative "Sarabande" which despite its name is an ultimate slow piece, and then to the energetic "Bourrées 1 and 2", not too distant relatives of those for lute that once enchanted the Jethro Tull, and finishing with the bouncing "Badinerie", a brief and aerial flutter of joy, somehow transformed into a "must" of mobile phone ringtones.
In the Overture of the Suite No. 3 in D major BWV 1068 is celebrated the dazzling sound of baroque trumpets, so dense and warm as to seem golden, no less sparkling than the decorations of the time. A sound exalted by the rumble of the timpani, which makes this Overture undoubtedly the most powerful of the three, the ideal introduction for what is its exact opposite, the light, infinitely melodic "Air on the G String", which at least in the original is dominated by the singing of the violin (hence the name) barely supported by a soft throbbing of the lower strings. It is difficult to imagine it danced by anyone: it is made exclusively to be listened to, dreaming with open eyes. To wake us from the enchantment come the explosive "Gavottes 1 and 2", which re-present the overpowering force of trumpets and timpani, as indeed does the lively "Gigue", which closes this Suite like a seal of quality.
All that remains is to recommend an orchestra that can adequately accompany us on this journey into the elegance and grace of distant times. Although purists have been in vogue for some years now, trying to reconstruct the sound of the time with limited ensembles and original instruments, the majesty of these works can also be rendered by a more classic orchestra. As far as I am concerned, I remain faithful to the masterful 1961 interpretation by Yehudi Menuhin, here as the orchestra conductor (of the Bath Festival Orchestra) but better known for being one of the greatest violinists of the past century, someone who knew the sound of the violin and all the strings like the back of his hand, and it is evident here.
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