Search - Johann Sebastian Bach, Wanda Landowska :: Landowska plays Bach

Landowska and her favorite composer.

John Austin | Kangaroo Ground, Australia | 02/08/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Collected on this well-filled CD are many Bach keyboard works Landowska recorded between 1928 and 1950. There is at least one great recordings here - Landowska's performance of the Toccata in D, BWV 912. Flanked by outer sections, in which the rhythmic impulse is positively erotic, the slow inner section demonstrates Landowska's ability to make a harpsichord express nobility and grandeur. She does it by subtle adjustment of note values, which makes her playing so memorable, and also by less subtle changes of registration on her recital-size harpsichord, which is not the way harpsichord players of today favor. Elsewhere there is perhaps too much use of 16 foot tone, also, and the use of a lute stop for producing staccato effects. Many of the Landowska recordings here are hard to find in the CD market. Those who find them and listen to them will probably decide that everybody else's performances of these works sound lifeless by comparison."

Absolutely revelatory !

Walter Smith | 02/28/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"What can you say about the way Landowska plays. She takes the simple Little Preludes, for example, and plays then in a way that can only be called magical. I only wish the recording had less surface noise, but if this is the only way we can hear Landowska today, then I can certainly live with it."