Blind comparison: Bach Cello Suites

[aligreto]

My vote, in order of preference....


X2 - first
X3 - second
X4 - third
X1 - last


X2 got my no. 1 vote simply because it had something different in a world of relative sameness and therefore made it stand out for me. All other things being equal, No. 2 had something that would make me listen to it again and again over the other three versions [not that they were in any way poor performances].

[jlaurson]

Indeed and see also, the final round and overall winner in the recent Schubert String Quintet blind comparison - a similar thing happened.

Have you a convenient link so that I may click my lazy a*# over there?  0:)

[aukhawk]

The complete thread:
Schubert String Quintet (july 2014)
or for just the denoument:
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php?topic=23409.280

For my fairly complete list of links to blind tests on GMG (so far):
http://www.good-music-guide.com/community/index.php/topic,23767.msg850707.html#msg850707

[aukhawk]

Thanks aligreto - this is increasingly looking like a race for 2nd place 

[aligreto]

Thanks aligreto - this is increasingly looking like a race for 2nd place 

You are most welcome. I have enjoyed this and look forward to the final outcome.

[aukhawk]

No votes since 10th April.
The six votes we have so far do give a clear result, but in fairness we do need to see a couple more.  I'll set a deadline of Wednesday 22nd April (end of the day, US time) and post the results of this Final the following morning (UK time).

[mc ukrneal]

First - x1
x4
x3
Last - x2

Sorry for taking so long...And thanks again for organizing this!

[aukhawk]

Thanks, mc ukrneal

Last call for any more votes - 48 hours left.

[Pat B]

Thanks, mc ukrneal

Last call for any more votes - 48 hours left.

I'll listen to the last one today and vote tomorrow.

[jfdrex]

I ought to preface my remarks and my vote in this final round by saying that I've discovered that this exercise finds me somewhat out of my comfort zone, or at least my zone of expertise (insofar as I possess any musical expertise ).  Put before me multiple recordings of a work by Bruckner or Sibelius or Elgar or Rachmaninoff, for example, and I'll have strong and detailed and definite opinions... But here, with the Bach suites for cello, I feel at though I'm truly flying blind (which maybe is the point of a blind listening! )

With that being said...

X1 did not immediately appeal to me on first hearing, and wound up in third place in my initial rankings.  But on subsequent hearings, I was moved by a haunting, haunted, otherworldly quality in the music that this performance conveys.  There's a depth and a heaviness to the sound--at times, I'm not sure if this "heaviness" is "authentic Bach: (whatever that is) or even "good" cello-playing (whatever that is); there's an old-fashioned feel to the playing that tells me this is not a HIP performance, & so I suspect it will not appeal to HIPsters.  In any case, though I cannot say whether this is a great performance, to my ears it is a very good and solid one.

X2 has a distinctive sound that draws my immediate attention--but I can't honestly say it's a sound I like.  In fact, I dislike what my ears hear, and I don't hear enough heart in the playing or interest in the interpretation to overcome this aural negativity.  Right now this is not a performance to which I would want to return.  But that's a purely personal reaction; I'm willing to concede that some listeners might consider this to be a great performance.

X3 was my favorite performance of the four on first hearing.  But (this is a technical complaint about the recording, not about the performance per se), the microphone picks up too much breathing and sighing.  (I don't begrudge the cellist his breathing, nor even his sighing, but I want to concentrate on the sound of the cello.)  And, more seriously, on repeated hearing, I found something about the interpretation a bit off-putting--perhaps a certain self-consciousness or fussiness in the performance, the cellist being more concerned with making an impression than in exploring the music?

X4 strikes me as a performance of great gentleness, tenderness, sensitivity.  I like both the overall feel/ atmosphere/ emotional world or whatever you want to call it, and--just as much if not more--the treatment of the smallest musical details in the score.  This cellist achieves a fine balance between the technical aspect of the music and the the spiritual aspect; there's more light and shade here than in any of the other three performances.  Of the four performances in this group, this is without question the one I'd be happiest to add my admittedly modest collection of Bachiana.

Thus (at the risk of throwing a monkey wrench [aka spanner] into the works), after listening to each of these recordings several times over a period of a couple of weeks, my revised, final ranking is:

X4
X1
X3
X2

[aukhawk]

Thanks - and great comments, very perceptive, I think.

[xochitl]

overall this last round was just meh to me

X1 - i know this one and ive never liked it. weakest part of a cycle with some very high peaks
X2 - the instrument sounds unwieldy and buzzy (or soft and bloomy if you liked it) and took a few listens to gauge the performance. measured, sensitive, philosophical. i could get used to it. maybe. i see where he's coming from.
X3 - now we're talking. emotions. weight. mystery. phrasing that doesnt make me scratch my head in dissatisfaction. not the best ever by any stretch considering what weve seen previous rounds but still pretty stellar. rock solid
X4 - is it just me or do a lot of cellists push the inflection/rubato ("sigh...shhhh...-OH!-siiiGHHH. because this is deep music. aaand now i attack the string! wobble! feel my feels!") and make a mush of this suite? i'd rather watch a mexican soap opera (yes, i'm mexican, so it's not a putdown). what a mess

X3>X2>X1>>>>>>>>>X4

[jlaurson]

X4 - is it just me or do a lot of cellists push the inflection/rubato ("sigh...shhhh...-OH!-siiiGHHH. because this is deep music. aaand now i attack the string! wobble! feel my feels!") and make a mush of this suite? i'd rather watch a mexican soap opera (yes, i'm mexican, so it's not a putdown). what a mess

:-)

I like this description and I like the performance.

[aukhawk]

Me too 

10 hours ...

[Pat B]

These are pretty different from each other, but I had a hard time ranking them. I liked them all. From best to least good:

X4
X1
X3
X2

X4: I fear this is the one I hated in the prologue and round 1. And if so, those were more bad than this is good (compared to the rest of the group). But still, it's the one I like best in this round, pretty consistently.
X1: Seems the straightest in this group, but it's very good.
X3: Very, very close to X1. Usually I'm not bothered by a bit of performance noise but the breathing here reaches the point of distraction.
X2: Unique tone. (Is this the surviving spalla performance? But it's tuned lower than the others.) Anyway, it's good, but the others are better.

[aukhawk]

I know exactly what you mean about X4.

OK, votes closed, results coming up.  Several people found the final dull compared with previous rounds - well what we had was:
1. An established GMG favourite, no surprise at all to find him in the final.
2. The last surviving non-cello, someone playing an instrument they made themselves.
3. A relative unknown, a recent recording on a very small indie label.
4. A cellist who is often dismissed as being too extreme an interpreter.

Quite a mixture!

[Sergeant Rock]

My favorite hasn't been eliminated yet (of course I don't know if he's a competitor). From the comments it sounds like it might be X4. Looking forward to the final results.

Sarge

[aukhawk]

No-one gets eliminated any more Sarge - everyone's a winner 

The Results of the Bach Cello Suites blind comparison FINAL:

Final places in this final are based on the votes in this final alone, as is usual in these GMG blind comparisons.  I have also included a 'weighted average' over all 4 rounds (weighted because the last 2 rounds count more than round 1, and the preliminary round hardly at all, based on the amount of music presented in each round).   On this basis you will see that 2nd and 3rd places could be reversed.
NB some quotes below are lifted from earlier rounds.

4th place
X2 (30% in the final, but weighted average over all 4 rounds was a much more creditable 49%)
"It's very good but some of the emphases are overly exaggerated as sometimes happens in the HIP world."
"Lithe, in part because of the acoustic. Interesting touch and interesting sound."
"it's good, but the others are better"

8 out of 10 voters placed this last or next-last, in the final group.  In retrospect possibly Pergamenschikow or Schiff, who both were very much in the running to make the final, would have shown better than this.  Nice to have one of the non-cello offerings make it all the way though.
X2 (was H5/E4/B5) was

...

Dmitry Badiarov
[asin]B003SSIL7A[/asin]
Playing his 'cello da spalla.  I say 'his' - because he was also the builder of this instrument.  So that's pretty special.



3rd place
X1 (50% in the final, but weighted average over all 4 rounds was 71%)
"there's an old-fashioned feel to the playing that tells me this is not a HIP performance, & so I suspect it will not appeal to HIPsters"
"[Suite 6] weakest part of a cycle with some very high peaks"
"There's a depth and a heaviness to the sound"

3 voters placed this one last in the final group.  In earlier rounds he did much better and always looked like a likely finalist, easily winning his groups in both round 1 (3rd & 2nd suites) and round 2 (6th suite).
X1 (was H2/E5/B1) was

...

Jean-Guihen Queyras
[asin]B000T2OMX0[/asin]
The established GMG favourite and top recommendation, to judge by the Bach Cello Suites thread.  Surprising to see opinion so divided when it came to the crunch here.



2nd place
X4 (57% in the final, but weighted average over all 4 rounds was 62%)
"a performance of great gentleness, tenderness, sensitivity"
"Exclamation mark at the end. Not every-day Bach, but special"
"trying too hard"

3 voters placed him 1st, but he very nearly didn't make it out of round 1, since he placed only 4th in his group in that round (beaten by Fournier, Badiarov and Queyras).  Had no such trouble in round 2 though, slid through to the final with ease.
X4 (was G5/E1/B7) was

...

Gavriel Lipkind
[asin]B005J59JF8[/asin]
In contrast to Queyras, Lipkind divides opinions and has a bit of a reputation for 'going too far'.  In this 5th Suite he is quite restrained (by his own standards) and the result is a terrific 2nd place.


1st place - oh, hang on a bit ...

[aukhawk]

1st place
X3 (78% in the final, but weighted average over all 4 rounds was 77%)
"perhaps a certain self-consciousness or fussiness in the performance"
"the breathing here reaches the point of distraction"
"this feels like a confession, exultant but with all kinds of shadows around it"

Make no mistake, this 1st place is no fluke. 
This cellist scored 100% in the preliminary round (ie everyone who heard it, asked to hear more).
In round 1 he came 2nd in group (to Pergamenschikow).
In round 2 he was 1st in group and 1st overall, placed either 1st or 2nd by every voter.
In this final, and in fact through all 4 rounds, no voter has ever placed him last in group. 4 voters placed him 1st.
His average over 4 rounds, weighted or not, however you count it, was easily the highest of all 30.

X3 (was G4/F2/C6) was

...

Arnau Tomàs

   
This appears to be unavailable as CD from Amazon US.
As I write, it is available as CD via Amazon UK ("3 in stock") http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00P08LCEA
or it is available as downloads from both sources.
The record label is Aglae Música which appears to be a very small Spanish independent.
http://www.aglaemusica.com/web/en/produccion_discografica/1%C2%BA-produccion-aglae-musica/

I don't have the recording details, but it was released in late 2014 so probably recorded earlier that year, possibly in some collegiate facility in Barcelona.

[prémont]

Well, I spotted Lipkind, Queyras and Badiarov , but I do not know Tomàs. Very incidentally I ordered his set from JPC a few days ago, and it is at the moment on its way to me. I do not regret that purchase.

And thanks for planning this entertaining game aukhawk