Search - Johann Sebastian Bach, Louis Nagel :: Four Centuries of Bach

What a program! Terrific playing and very interesting music

Craig Matteson | Ann Arbor, MI | 11/30/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"This disk gives everyone an opportunity what we in Ann Arbor have none for quite awhile; Louis Nagel is a fine and interesting pianist. He plays with an ability to do what he wants to do and it turns out that what he wants to do is both interesting and moving. He is a graduate of Julliard and has been a professor teaching piano at the University of Michigan School of Music since 1969. He was very kind to me when I was exploring coming to study at Michigan, but as a theory major I was never fortunate enough to study with him. However, he did sit in on a couple of my term juries and was always helpful in his comments and evaluations (I was fortunate to study piano with Robert Hord). I do see Professor Nagel around town once in awhile and he each time he has a vague idea that I attended the school, but nothing beyond that. He is always pleasant and gracious enough to have little conversations about this and that. Our last conversation was at the copy center at Staples. He was copying something and noticed that I was copying some vocal music by Victoria about whom we shared a few thoughts.



Anyway, this disk is a great treat. Not only do you get to hear Professor Nagel play, but the program is immensely interesting as well. The idea is that Bach inherited a keyboard tradition, became its culmination, and subsequently influenced composers and keyboardists (pianists) to this very day. While this topic could provide a whole library of disks, this one focuses on the idea of the toccata / prelude and fugue idea.



He starts us off with a wonderful toccata by Frescobaldi. From this we get the idea of the sharp contrasts and free form to capture an improvisatory style. We get to compare this to the much larger, but similarly styled Toccata in D major BWV 912 by Bach.



The next four tracks alternate a prelude and fugue by Johann Kaspar Ferdinand Fischer with a prelude and fugue by Bach using similar musical materials. As the notes point out, it is clear that Bach knew these pieces. However, it is also interesting to see how much genius matters in creating music that still matters to us. He concludes the Bach portion of the disk with a poetic reading of the famous Prelude and Fugue in C major from Book 1 of the Well Tempered Clavier.



We then get to hear three pieces that clearly are informed by knowledge of Bach, but take very different approaches with that understanding. The Opus 35 Prelude and Fugue in E minor by Felix Mendelssohn is a work performed much less frequently nowadays than it was fifty or seventy-five years ago. I think we should pay more attention to Mendelssohn's music and Nagel makes a convincing case for why this is so.



When is the last time you heard anything from Hindemith's "Ludus Tonalis"? Here Nagel plays the Fuga Tertia in F (3rd Fugue - F major). You get to hear Hindemith's views on tonality. You should also try to see if you can hear when the retrograde presentation of the music begins.



The program ends with a mighty performance of the Prelude and Fugue in D minor by Dmitri Shostakovich. Wow. Nagel really does pull off the drama of the double fugue and yet keeps everything clear no matter how big the sound gets or thick the texture becomes. Masterful playing.

So, look at this program! When do you get to hear something like this? My view is you need to buy this disk and enjoy the heck out of it."