Something Almost Being Said: Music of Bach & Schub [Import]

There's no getting around this when assessing the work of New Yorker Simone (ci-Moan-uh) Dinnerstein: she divides critical and public opinion as much as any artist practicing today. Any concert of hers is more personal utterance than musical examination of the subjects at hand. With more classical music being recorded and released today than ever before, Dinnerstein has brought classical music to a new generation of listeners who see her work as a beacon through the increasing fog of classical music recordings. Now she brings to her fans two of Johann Sebastian Bach's most revered keyboard works and beloved miniatures from Franz Schubert.

Dinnerstein has many times demonstrated affinity for Bach, whose keyboard Partitas occupy territory similar to the piano sonatas of Ludwig van Beethoven. Comprised of a sequence of French dances, Bach's set (there are six of them that demonstrate varying degrees of emotional and intellectual qualities) are almost never played today in Baroque style. Players like Dinnerstein, who use modern pianos with large sustaining characteristics, ornament freely and use rubato to extreme as she has done in the lovely Sarabande of the Partita No. 1. Dinnerstein is marginally less personal and more mainstream in Franz Schubert's earlier set of impromptus; witness her shimmering brilliance of Schubert's fourth impromptu from the D. 899 set that sounds like many other pianists that have recorded this or both sets of Schubert's Impromptus.

While I was taken by her personalized style in her debut album, I am less enthused and convinced about her way in the two mighty Bach partitas included here. The Partita 2, in particular, is open to many forms of interpretation -- from Argerich's fire to Perahia's intellectualized legato to Gould's staccato and Tureck's humanity, the latter being my favorite of those I know. In a very crowded field, it's difficult to place Dinnerstein other than to say she seems more focused on deliberation for emotional reasons rather than to elucidate lines of counterpoint and more foucsed on the parts than the whole.

It is similar in the Partita 1 where, after her dance-like rhythm in the Corrente, she reverts to her slower, more personalized manner that seems to eschew any partiuclar school of playing. I'm pleased she takes repeats differently each time but, again, see her work in this music as more parts than a whole. Compare her Partita 1 to Maria João Pires or Dubravka Tomsic, just to name two practitioners, to get an idea of the way Dinnerstein plays with the puzzle parts without putting it together to see the big picture. The other women play the music more aggressively, as well, and both put the score together, in my mind, better than Simone. I think Dinnerstein is better in the Schubert miniatures even though, like a lot of pianists that concentrate more on expression than technique, she doesn't exploit the possibility of contrast in these beauties.

Overall, Dinnerstein does not sway me, in part because I prefer pianism with greater technique than she exhibits. With that caveat, I'd say anyone looking for a new recording of either the Bach Partitas or the Schubert Impromptus will probably be more satisfied with current favorites than this one unless you seek a dreamy, sometimes hypnotic performance that de-emphasizes Bach's duelling hands counterpoint. This recording's great values are its low price, general availability, and contents that match Bach's Baroque genius to Schubert's early stream of Romantic consciousness. For fans of Simone Dinnerstein, I think this is a marvelous concert that may sway more classical music newcomers to examine it more fully.

Ms. Dinnerstein's playing of the Schubert Op. 90 is great. She delivers thunder when it's needed and yet plays as delicately as a mourning dove almost in the same breath.
Her Bach continues to fascinate me. She plays Bach as uniquely as Glenn Gould did, but in a different direction. I have listened to these Partitas for years and yet her interpretation makes them sound nearly like new pieces, especially the C minor.
Some of the old hardliners might have an issue with the way she markets her CDs with photos of her everywhere either dreaming at the piano or gliding through the forest, but you know what? She's a doll and they can put all the photos of her they want on the disc cover. And if it helps sell more CDs I say good for her.

I just received the new Simone Dinnerstein album, "Something Almost Being Said". Thank you Amazon pre-ordering and prime shipping for presumably allowing me to be the first on my block to get it. I listened to it in the car on the way to and from work today and it is gorgeous. There are the Four Schubert Impromptus sandwiched in between 2 Bach Partitas. The Partitas are exquisite - every entering voice is articulated and all the voices are so well defined and phrased. They are superb. Ms Dinnerstein takes a slower tempo in the 1st and 2nd Impromptu, which I am still pondering, but what it does in the 1st Impromptu is give a big emotional punch to the phrase endings - you are on the edge of you seat at each phrase (which makes driving a tad tricky). It is meditational - pensive - quiet and reverential. The album is well named because what Ms. Dinnerstein achieves in all three pieces is an intimate conversation - a tête-a-tête between her, the composer and us, the audience. We are drawn into this conversation as we hear the voices of the fugues drift in and out or Schubert's arching, seemingly endless melodic phrases float over those gentle waves of accompaniment. This is a CD to listen to over and over - you will hear something new each time. I had the honor to hear Ms. Dinnerstein play the Goldberg Variations in Philadelphia a year ago and it leaves you breathless to see such towering intellectual achievement along with such finely tuned sensitivity and expressiveness. Thank you! Oh - and buy the physical CD - the poem and artwork in the notes are a joy.