Jacques Loussier Trio: Bach's Goldberg Variations

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Free Music Notes for Jacques Loussier Trio: Bach's Goldberg Variations

Free Music Review: Digging Bach
Hit: 5 Stars

Loussier and his colleagues Benoit Dunoyer de Segonzac on the bass and André Arpino on drums not only had the nerve to trip the fantatic in these hallowed precincts with verve and dash, but they had the gall to make it swing! Loussier's renditions of the piano lines betray a virtuoso's acquaintance with the original, the kind of intimate knowledge that allows playful departure. And the Trio's radical recastings--for example the imposition of a merengue beat below, with Latin syncopation in the upper voice--are always faithful both to the source's well-known structure and to the trio's well-rehearsed intentions.

It is SO French: on the one hand flagrantly intellectual, the cool mind dissecting Bach's thoroughly cerebral architecture, analyzing and recasting it in fine fluid form, on the other a familiar lover's labor of unmistakable admiration and knowing love, done with a touch that for all its care and preparation still manages to impart delicious spontaneities.

And yet Loussier's treatment stands on its own as a musical statement, quite aside from its obvious tribute to the ever present shade of the Kapellmeister of Dresden. My twelve-year-old twin daughters have only the briefest of acquaintance with Bach's original work, yet immediately connected with the fluent insinuations of Loussier's rendition, grinning from ear to ear at the ready audacity of it. They had earlier enjoyed the Loussier Trio's haunting jazz treatment of Erik Satie's "Gymnopédies," another successful jazz translation, but in an entirely different vein. The trio has also issued jazz treatments of Ravel's "Bolero" and Vivaldi's "Four Seasons."

Certain Bach purists will no doubt cringe at the notion of such treatment: I say let them do without! And Mrs. Grundy may not like it--but then she's still upset with Bach for fathering so many children! Bach himself could be trusted to accept this delectable homage and maybe suggest more riffs to give it added . . . what do the French say? . . . Panâche!

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