Listeners to Helene Grimaud’s BACH either love it or hate it. One reviewer on AMAZON railed that Grimaud doesn’t have the faintest idea of how to play this music. I’ve listened to a lot of Bach over the years and I confess Grimaud’s Bach doesn’t really sound like Bach. As one critic might put it: “She knows all the notes, but she doesn’t have the tune.” I much prefer Murray Perahia playing Bach. The music has better balance. I did like Helene Grimaud’s CD with Beethoven’s “Piano Concerto #5” and “Piano Sonata #28.” Maybe she understands Beethoven better than she understands Bach. GRADE: C (for BACH) and B (for BEETHOVEN).
One critic thinks B FOR BEETHOVEN would be a good title for a Sue Grafton novel.
I bet my husband would buy it for the cover.
Helene Grimaud has high babe-factor covers on all her CD’s.
Funny about Grimaud, she lets the PR people exploit her supermodel-class beauty to the hilt on her CDs, but in the concert hall she downplays it: plain pantssuit, flat shoes, minimal makeup, hair severely pulled back, and an all-business stride to the instrument that would make any catwalker cringe. Very much the antithesis of other Classical Babes (Anne-Sophie Mutter, Julia Fischer, et al.), who play their glam images to the hilt on the platform.
I’m just now listening to the Bach album. Not surprisingly, given her romantic bent (she’s a fabulous Brahms player), the transcriptions come off best (though her Chaconne is a bit sec for my taste).
I wondered if you would like her version of the Chaconne. It was not to my taste, either. Grimaud should stick with Brahms and Beethoven.