English Suites and Partitas on harpsichord or clavichord

[Mandryka]

And that a learning process of the highest degree can't be a pleasure, either?

I think what she's saying is that responding properly to music, in this case Brahms, is essentially a synthetic labour that involves the emotional sphere in the continuous dynamics and phenomenology. It may accidentally be a pleasure. 

[amw]

I would recommend Asperen or Suzuki over any of the recordings you chose to listen to, for the record. I do also have Rannou and Rousset and have heard Egarr but I wouldn't consider any of them on the same level in terms of their capacity to facilitate the intellectual labour of listening.

[Jo498]

Is Van Asperen the one that got into a Brilliant classics collection?

It's not that I find the listening laborious, only trying to decide, what to keep and what to get rid of eventually for reasons of shelf space. (I finally decided that I have to do something about that.)

I also have to admit that I acquired these recordings not according to some plan or even strong recommendations/reviews. As far as I remember I had only Gould's recording on piano and a few single suites on recitals for years. Around 8 or 10 years ago I got Mustonen and Rousset because I thought I should have one on harpsichord and found them cheaply on Ebay and Rousset's was basically all the rage back then (this position seems to have Rannou nowadays). Probably due to both of them having loud aggressive sound they remained among my less favorite Bach pieces for years.

Later I got the Egarr on some irresistible offer and Jaccottet was also cheap (and I usually found her underrated). The ones in boxes (Curtis Teldec Bach 2000 and Walcha which I obviously did not get mainly or only for these suites) were among the latest additions.

I guess I prefer somewhat drier sound (but not loud and ugly) as opposed to the huge resonant sound of e.g. Rousset, partly because the latter also seems to obscure the voices. I'd prefer more contrasts in sound, mood and tempo than most interpretations seem to provide, prefer "quirkiness" in the second to last movements and gigues to sheer speed. I have no clue about embellishments, I can mainly state that Jaccottet hardly does any additional ones and Egarr seems to do a lot. I am probably open to both options.

[amw]

Is Van Asperen the one that got into a Brilliant classics collection?

Yes, it's on Brilliant and should be cheap.

Someday when I have more time I will A/B/C/D etc a particular english suite to make a more informed decision but it's definitely almost always one of those two I turn to nowadays.

It's not that I find the listening laborious,

That was more of a reference to the quote Mandryka pulled lol

[Jo498]

I got the Van Asperen (actually I got the whole Brilliant vol.2 for around 5 EUR...), listenend to 1-5 so far. It is very good and does fulfil most of my desiderata. I'd still prefer a slightly less resonant sound (it's good over speakers, not ideal with my headphones). Clarity is good, embellishments are moderate, as far as I can tell at first scoreless listening (I also think he does the "agréments" of the Sarabandes in 2 and 3 in the repeats, not a full new version of the piece). Gavotte in 3 still a little too fast for my taste but generally nice contrasts between the movements. His #4 could become my favorite, the menuetto is so much better in my ears at Van Asperen's moderate pace.  Have to listen to #5 again and also #6, maybe he is a little on the "light side" for these two heavyweights.

[SergeCpp]

Here my list of preference as of ~2012-14. Harpsichord only. After those years I discovered many new (for me) performances that could be enlisted but to do so I need to listen new discoveries more thoroughly and simply more (times). Maybe I'll post primary subset of these new discoveries separately here. Lists are ordered by suitability for me (top is more, bottom is less).

Partitas
—
Masaaki Suzuki (2001)
Edward Parmentier (1991)
Nicholas Parle (2002)
Trevor Pinnock (1998-99)
Scott Ross (1988)
Christophe Rousset (1992)
Kenneth Gilbert (1984-85)
Pascal Dubreuil (2007)

English Suites
—
Christophe Rousset (2003)
Carole Cerasi (2005)
Blandine Rannou (2003)
Kenneth Gilbert (1981)
Gustav Leonhardt (1973)
Olga Martynova (2007-08)
Alan Curtis (1979)
Pascal Dubreuil (2011)

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