Fabrizio Chiovetta (piano) - Bach: Keyboard Suites (BWV809, 825, 831) album review

Geneva-born pianist Fabrizio Chiovetta has recorded music from the 19th and 20th centuries, likes to play Viennese repertoire on original instruments and is also a talented improviser.

Unless you know your BWV numbers well you might assume the repertoire on this new CD is obscure enough to want to hide its identity. Quite the opposite. He offers the French Overture, the Partita No. 1 in B flat, BWV825, and the English Suite No. 4. His style in Bach is fleet and dry, with absolutely no cobwebs of pedal, his way with embellishments, whether Bach’s or his own, is deliciously light-fingered, and he uses his left hand in a way that is exceptionallyi light.

And for all that, there’s a sense of distance that amounts to a dispassion that will limit this disc’s appeal.

[ apartemusic.com ]