Bach Chamber Works – London Conchord Ensemble

Somewhere a reviewer — writing for one of those glossy magazines that traffics in superlatives — declared that this recording “restored my faith in humanity.” One wonders what humanity had done to offend. Bach’s faith in humanity, after all, was never really the point; his faith ran considerably higher than that.

Daniel Pailthorpe and the London Conchord Ensemble play well. Sometimes very well. But the modern piano sitting in the middle of these performances is a signal — unmistakable, non-negotiable — that we are operating well outside the territory of historical practice, and no amount of expressive finesse quite papers over that fact. The Champs Hill producer hasn’t helped matters by inserting unusually long silences between movements, lending the proceedings an air of portentousness these works neither need nor invite.

Still. Nuance is required.

The Conchord has been pared down to five string players — a quintet, essentially — and the effect is more intimate than you might expect, except that Pailthorpe and company manage to project something considerably larger than their numbers suggest. For the one-to-a-part faithful, there’s a theoretical appeal here: Bach’s textures rendered with chamber-scale transparency, yet with a body of sound that doesn’t leave you straining. The basso continuo is gone, though, and certain liberties with ornamentation, tempo, and rhythmic profile will send purists reaching for their Harnoncourt. This is Bach nudged — gently, not brutally — downstream from his own century.

Whether that constitutes a problem depends entirely on what you’re looking for.

Pailthorpe is a genuinely gifted flutist — his wooden instrument has a warmth and slight roughness in the lower register that the modern Boehm flute simply can’t replicate — and violinist Milford matches him phrase for phrase in the duet writing. The recorded sound is clean and present, though Pailthorpe has been miked so closely in the Partita that you occasionally hear more breath than music; a little more distance would have served him better, and the microphone placement does him no favors when the breathing gets audible.

The booklet is downloadable, free, and genuinely well written — a minor virtue that shouldn’t be overlooked. It includes the observation that the “Badinerie” from the companion Suite represents “the nearest Bach ever came to composing a musical soufflé.” Charming, if not exactly illuminating. Less charming: the photographs lean heavily on casual portraits of Pailthorpe, while the five string players who actually constitute half this ensemble hover somewhere in the background. That imbalance on the page reflects something about the release’s conception that is, finally, its central limitation.

For listeners unburdened by strong opinions about what Bach should sound like — and there are many such listeners, and nothing wrong with them — this will do very nicely. The price is reasonable. The playing is real. But Bach’s deepest self remains, here, somewhat domesticated.