Listeners accustomed to Art of Fugue interpretations where steady tempos and linear clarity prevail surely will take issue with Sergio Vartolo’s frequent phrase distentions, tenutos, breath pauses, hiccups, and sundry agogic conceits that serve little structural or expressive purpose. However, such devices work best in selections where Vartolo manages to establish a reference tempo from which his liberties naturally take shape, as in the march-like Contrapunctus II and Contrapunctus VI “in Stylo Francese”, and in the straightforward and vigorously lilting three-voice mirror fugues and their two-harpsichord counterparts. Vartolo also plays the amazing canon in augmentation and contrary motion briskly and directly. Finesse and forethought inform Vartolo’s ornaments, although his trills tend to outstay their welcome (the canon at the tenth’s coda, for instance).
Colorful, attractively varied registrations and tonal beauty characterize Vartolo’s excellently recorded Taskin model harpsichord. While I can tolerate Vartolo in small doses, Sébastien Guillot’s Naxos recording based on the original autograph (type Q10194 in Search Reviews) provides more lasting musical satisfaction, as do our harpsichord reference versions listed above.
