MacGregor

[Jim Morrison <jim_morrison@sprynet.com>]

>
> Anyone heard Joanna MacGregor play Bach.

I haven't, but thanks for the tip.


She did a now out of print CD of the French Suites.


Catalog#: COL 1371
Label: Collins Classics
Dist: Allegro
Spars: DDD
Release Date: 11/8/93

And another out of print recording called Counterpoint of the Art of Fugue
along with some Nancarrow Studies.
Catalog#: COL 7043

Label: Collins Classics
Dist: Allegro
Spars: DDD
Release Date: 5/1/96


Of which my favorite Gramaphone critic, and champions of Gould's Bach, says:

Much of this would remain mere theory if Joanna MacGregor's performances did
not testify to her sense of Bach's richness, intellectual grace and cunning.
Immaculate, lucid and sensitive she reveals The Art of Fugue as an
incomparable act of meditation and makes comparisons, even with pianists
such as Tatyana Nikolaieva (Hyperion, 2/93) or Grigory Sokolov (Opus 111),
seem peculiarly irrelevant.

MacGregor has, of course, recorded Bach and Nancarrow before for Collins
(the former's French Suites, 2/94 and the latter's witty, cocktail banter,
Prelude and Blues, 8/89) but here the juxtaposition is the thing. Using
multi-track techniques she emulates and excels Nancarrow's original player
piano capacity for intricacy. Quaver-durations of a very fast tempo of
5,5,6,4; 5,5,3,4; 5,4,3,3,2 (I am quoting MacGregor again) in Study No. 11,
end in a fantastic virtuoso uproar and remind one of a related complexity in
"Canon B", the second of the Three Canons for Ursula. The difficulties are
immense but in Joanna MacGregor such music has a superlative champion. All
her performances in their power and eloquence positively beg you to share
her sense of discovery and exhilaration. The recordings are magnificent and
all in all this is an indispensable issue for all intrepid explorers and for
all musicians who relish a supreme play of the mind and imagination.

BM

It's sad that such a well-praised disc would go out of print, along with
most of her other titles.  Odd.