Older record collectors probably know pianist Carl Seemann as a chamber music player, notably through his sonata collaborations with violinist Wolfgang Schneiderhan. Yet Seemann performed and recorded as a soloist in his own right. Taped for Radio Bremen in July, 1965, Seemann’s Bach Partitas contain memorable moments. The pianist warms up by the time the heavenly trills in the First Partita’s Sarabande kick in, and the characterful, bouncing Menuetts and Gigue make up for lackluster playing in the first three movements. If Seemann doesn’t quite project the pomp and intensity others bring to the Fourth Partita’s grand Ouverture, his crisply delineated Courante and Gigue certainly command attention. The pianist’s detaché articulation throughout the Fifth Partita is suffused with dry, gentle wit, especially in the outer movements.
By contrast, the Second Partita gets a relatively workaday reading. The closing Capriccio’s lithe counterpoints, for instance, submerge under Seemann’s emphatic, heavy touch. In the Sixth Partita, the pianist’s unyielding, literal treatment of the Toccata’s opening, arpeggiated theme robs the music of its rhetorical anguish. But then we have Seemann’s inspired, nimble, and insightful pianism throughout the Third Partita–my favorite performance of the six. At full price, these Bach Partitas inevitably compete with the reference recordings listed above. Recommended, then, to those who tend to collect multiple versions of the Bach Partitas, or have a special interest in Carl Seemann.
