Hyperion © CDA67709 (74' • DDD)
Bach through the eyes, ears and fingers of Eugen d'Albert - thrillingly recreated
The complete Bach-d'Albert was just waiting to be recorded: all eight titles sit comfortably on one disc; hardly any have been recorded before (Mark Hambourg's dashing 1921 account of the D major Prelude, BWV532, and Risto Lauriala's turgid 1996 one of the C minor Passacaglia are among the few); and on hand to revive these puzzlingly forgotten transcriptions is Piers Lane, whose two earlier recordings of d'Albert's piano concertos and solo works for Hyperion (5/95, 1/98) make him the natural choice for the job, apart from having established his hyphenated Bach credentials with the superlative Volume 3 of this series (Friedman, Grainger and Murdoch: 7/03).

In transcribing Bach, d'Albert (1864-1932) differed in his approach to his near-contemporary Busoni by choosing only organ works, in pursuing clarity of texture above organ-like sonority and, as Kenneth Hamilton observes in his characteristically amusing and perceptive booklet, in the use of arpeggiated chords and octaves - "lucidity over weight" in other words. Not that Lane takes any prisoners in these sonorous and exhilarating performances, conjuring up from the Steinway's richly resonant bass a cathedral's 32 foot pedal division to thrilling effect. Try the F major Toccata (a score I've had for many years and always longed to hear played like tiiis) or the concluding D major Fugue, perfecdy paced and voiced. True, there is a lot of diddle-diddle-diddle in these 74 minutes (d'Albert never envisaged these works to be heard in this form) but I guarantee you will come away awed anew by the genius of Bach and amazed by die ingenuity of d'Albert. Jeremy Nicholas