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Is it right to interpret baroque music with instruments that did not exist at the time? Is it right to make a prelude written in the eighteenth century sound as if it were composed in full romanticism? Is it right for one of the most famous jazz pianists to dare to spend his talent on baroque music as well? Questions without answers, perhaps a bit irritating for the always hypersensitive purists of musical philology. Questions that maybe it's better not to have an answer to, to let the sound caress our hearts, for once without preconceptions, without mediations.
Not always, it must be admitted, have the great Keith's forays into classical music been entirely successful. Just think of the lackluster interpretation of the Goldberg Variations, where by the third or fourth variation you regret not having a Glenn Gould record in your hands. But this Händel is something else entirely, or rather, a different soul, suffused as it is with that liveliness, that earthly simplicity, that serenity and immediacy typical of the music (and spirit) of the great Saxon. Whose music, alas, is often buried by lethal and ultra-philological "performances" (in the literal sense of the term) struggling under layers of dust an inch thick.
Not here. Here everything is clear. Starting with the choice of the instrument, the piano, to awaken all the hidden and innovative facets of Händel's greatness. The interpretation is constantly inspired, yet at the same time very, very rigorous. And it's always surprising that this great musician, so composed in classical music, is the one who then shouts or bangs on the piano while delighting us with his improvisations.
Under Keith's fingers, this Händel now appears playful, now melancholic, now bucolic, but always and tremendously current in its musicality. Particularly splendid is the Suite in F major HWV 427, with its vitally energetic final fugue, where the various contrapuntal voices chase each other, rolling like children at play, cheerful with a thousand somersaults. And especially to be listened to is the Suite in A major, HWV 426, with which the album closes. The central part of the prelude is reinvented by Keith as if it were full romanticism, with cascades of arpeggios conveying a fervent and imaginative sensitivity, an inventiveness, a strength, an intimacy of full "Sturm und Drang". And then that melancholic inflection of the subsequent "Allemande", where the music reclines into an intimate and heartfelt dimension, finally resolving into the innocent and carefree joy of a "Gigue", where the joy of living and playing shines through every single note up to the final chord.
Simply splendid. And this baroque Keith Jarrett is genius simplicity.
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