Bach

ANTON BATAGOV

Melodiya presents a recording of J.S. Bach’s partitas performed by Anton Batagov, a promising pianist, prize-winner and Tatiana Nikolayeva’s alumni, the first performer of minimalist music in Russia and a composer with a distinctive style. As a principled antagonist of “authentism,” Batagov plays any music in a poignantly contemporary fashion, sensing the breath of today in it. Batagov hears Bach in drastically changing tempos, articulation and strokes as he repeats. His religious rendition of Bach’s partitas (he perceives No. 4 as a Christmas mystery, and No. 6 as a reflection of the Holy Passion) only naturally includes an arrangement of the chorale Jesus bleibet meine Freude played by the pianist between two cycles as a connecting link and dramatic core of the recording.

Price: $42.98