Recorded for German Radio in 1950 as part of a series of Bach broadcasts, Walter Gieseking’s readings of all but two English Suites last appeared on CD in a boxed set from Music and Arts. Urania’s transfer offers marginal improvement on its weightier sonority–and marginal is the operative word here. It’s interesting how a nonpareil master of the sustain pedal like Gieseking virtually ignores it in Bach, obtaining legato effects and tonal variety purely through finger power, hand balance, and arm weight. You especially notice this in the Sarabandes, where the keyboard writing is relatively slow and exposed, and whose phrases and ornaments Gieseking shapes with masterly equilibrium. By contrast, in quicker movements Gieseking tends to rush to the end of certain measures in the manner of an experienced sight-reader who habitually looks ahead in the score.
True, Gieseking’s sight-reading was better than lots of painstakingly rehearsed interpretations; but had he known that these Bach broadcasts were for keeps, I’d bet that the pianist would have asked for a few take twos in order to make the F major Allemande’s triplet figures more distinct, or reign in some of the Preludes’ faster tempos to ensure absolute rather than approximate steadiness within rapid figurations. Note, too, that an earlier and altogether more inspired Gieseking broadcast of the D minor English Suite (No. 6) from the mid-1940s is in circulation, and counts among the great pianist’s strongest Bach performances.
