The Spanish string quartet Cuarteto Casals has recorded for Harmonia Mundi Bach’s Art of Fuguing BWV 1080 like other quartets before them, Julliard, Emerson, Keller, etc. The difference in this approach, perhaps, is the lack of constant vibrato used by the players, lending the recording a quasi historical sound.

To be more precise, Keller in their ECM recording held back on vibrato as well, but the effect on that album and this one is very different.

The work has been tackled by HIP groups as well, indulging in orchestrations outside of the use of harpsichords and organs, including viol consorts (Fretwork, Phantasm), strings with keyboard support, recorder consorts, and then various other sundry arrangements using baroque instruments that probably go a step or two far in creative corners. Among those I was less enthusiastic about were the Akamus arrangements, the solutions by Concerto Italiano to change instruments within a movement, and the video presentation with signing by the group led by Shunske Sato for All of Bach.

Yet we can't help ourselves to explore this score that never specifically specified an instrument (or instruments) and one that is so clearly focused on Bach's solutions to the puzzles of counterpoint he puts before us.

I am not terribly familiar with the group on this recording, but did audition their Haydn op. 33 quartets and liked what I heard. They play with excellent control and a lot of vitality in that album.

I think this group plays well together and individually the players are each very strong. They try very hard to present a consistent, unified sound. While I think the recording by Keller was a lot of shadow play, a metaphor to how I heard that album with shifting intensity of light among the texture, this group is more about turning the lights up and only playing with dynamics in a concerted way, such as crescendos or decresendos over several bars with the entire ensemble. I bring this observation forward because it’s been made as a decision for the ensemble to express dynamics this way, as a group, rather than each in their own way, with their own voice.

A comparison might be apt looking at the first contrapunctus in this recording compared to the opening track of the same piece with Brecon Baroque. They too use an all string texture for this piece and while they don’t go to the extremes that Musica Antiqua Köln did in their recording, their approach to the music for me is more organic, allowing each voice its own say. Like the Keller Quartett, I think I prefer when the voices play within the shadows.

The more I listened to this album the more I did start to notice microdynamics from the players, again, with great control and precision. Headphone listening helped with this. The most enjoyable parts were with the canons, when just two instruments felt, perhaps, more free to embed more character into their playing.

I ultimately would have enjoyed this album more if they'd allowed for increased independence among the voices, maybe more vibrato (but clearly short of Emerson). The holding back of both vibrato and each voice’s independence with dynamics takes away the most from the last two tracks that for me are the most emotionally charged portions of the music. To be fair, this is what I hear, as Bach hadn’t placed any such markings to ask musicians to do things here.

That said, the players have great intonation given the restriction of no vibration in their sound. And without vibrating, they still manage to have a warm sound.

While I may not fully understand the artistic decision to seemingly hold back with individual expression, I commend them in setting to record this work and to do it in their own unique way. What they do achieve is supreme transparency for the music. At times their sound mimicked that of viols, but at other times I was reminded of an organ, in the consistent way each voice can sound. They manage to strip from their playing any notion of a romanticized sound imposed on this older music, but at the same time, I think they achieve something different than historical authenticity.

I did a quick audition of their Haydn op. 33 recording for a comparison, to better understand the ensemble’s artistic intentions, and I found their Haydn to be far more interesting with the variety of expression offered and the sound quality of the recording might have been just a tad preferable. The sound for this recording is good; at times the outer voices (L-R) do sound like they are in sharper focus than those in the middle. It is, really, what it is, when you’re in a U-shaped configuration and the choice to mike them this way is true to the spatial depth from a stage. The effect was far less pronounced using headphones for me.

I suspect some listeners will find the approach used by this quartet to be refreshing. I don’t have access to the liner notes to understand any performance parameters that may have been discussed. I will say that my first exposure to this work by a quartet was the Julliard Quartet recording made in the 1980s. The constant vibrato used indicate that the JQ had come to visit Bach, rather than Bach visiting the JQ. The HIP movement has re-conditioned us on how to play baroque music, even when so-called modern instruments are used, and yet that target is always moving as musicians push us into new corners of discovery.

For me the highest mark with performance is not historical accuracy, although I do place enormous weight on coming to terms with music given the context available to musicians when the music was born. In part, complete historical authenticity isn’t possible. Yet we can respond to older music given the values and ideals of the time, to understand the purpose behind the music, the role rhetoric played in performance, and charge placed upon the musicians to move the listener. And we shouldn’t strive to move the listeners from 1750; instead our aim should be to move the listeners of today. HIP shouldn’t ignore the fact that while say, a painting today can look reasonably the same as it did hundreds of years ago when it was conceived, the people viewing it are different.

I can’t say with any certainty that the performance style adopted here is inspired by historically-informed performance practice (HIP) or a post-modern attempt to cleanly present the music without interference, or something else. There are beautiful moments here presented by quite capable musicians. But for me, the restraint used to achieve the clarity of sound across all four voices, when called for, came at the cost of fully cultivating the depth I hear in this music. That said, I’d much prefer this over the recording by Emerson; likely Julliard too. I’d call a draw with Keller; Keller’s approach for me is more interesting, musically, but I also admire the articulation and recorded sound in this new album over Keller's.