I have heard many recordings of Bach's Trio Sonatas. This I like the most. John Butt's playing is so fluent & the organ sound is sweet & clear & well suited to these baroque masterpieces.
The profusion of interwoven melodic strands creates beautiful patterns that remind me why JS Bach has been described as 'the distiller of the essence of musical craft.'
The density of the writing is such with three tunes playing simultaneously, that you may need to listen a few times before your mind begins to unwrap these gems, then before you know it they will be playing over & over in your mind. I have listened to them for years & still find them to be as intriguing as the first few times I… Read more
This album comes at the end of an era in the 70's when jazz rock bands such as Brand X, Bruford & Weather Report, injected some badly needed refreshing novelty value into jazz which had, & indeed has, seemingly become a tired art form, based on the same old cliches & licks. Allan Holdsworth is as significant in the development of jazz rock guitar as Jimi Hendrix was to blues & pop rock guitar. All the more surprising then, with Holdsworth being such an important instrumentalist, that someone pressumably chose to only utilise his instrumental skills on just three tracks of 'Expresso II' ! Fortunately this was not the case on Gong's excellent album 'Gazeuse' as… Read more
I have listened to many recordings of these masterpieces. This I like most thanks to the playing, organ sound & recording quality. In these works there are no chords as such, no mere stacking of notes vertically on the stave here. The Trio Sonatas are instead, perfect examples of the interweaving of melodic strands. With the exception of other Bach works, I know of no other music so well crafted, animated & intriguing. No doubt this is due to changes in musical fashion or simply becuase there have been no composers in the last 250 years with Bach's contrapuntal skills or imagination.
