Bach performance

[aq094@lafn.org (Eugene Selig)]

Ivo Pogorelich says he is a great admirer of GG, and you will find his 
Bach reflects his acceptance of GG's approach. IP does not attempt to 
"experiment" in GG fashion, but he plays cleanly, with minimum pedal, to 
outline voices, a la GG's phenomenal gift.
Beware of the Czerny edition of Bach. It reflects a 19th century 
prospective, and as such became a Romantic model which musicologists have 
repudiated in the 20th century. It does the same kind of violence to the 
Baroque expression as Busoni's and Liszt's transcriptions of Bach organ 
works, or Stokowski's orchestral transcriptions. GG would have called 
it music for people who really hate Bach. 
Even though GG performed the WTC in different interpretations, depending 
on his personal perspective at the time, his playing was attentive to the 
countrapuntal style, i.e., demanding that fugal voices be heard over any 
complexities. Indeed, he brought back to the repertory Bach works which 
had been treated too pedanticly (if performed at all), on the one hand, or 
Romantically on the other, and gave them the sparkle, beauty, and life that
embodied all his Bach.