Evan Shinners Bach - Volume 3 Complete Keyboard Works
I’ve been enjoying Evan Goldfine’s Year of Bach project. From him, I learned about Evan Shinners, a Bach specialist. The album under review is entitled Bach Complete Keyboard Works Volume 3, Miscellaneous Preludes and Fugues, Part One. Volume 3, Part 1? The cover is weird, almost as much as the title.
The piano he’s playing, which I assume could be a Yamaha, sounds nice enough but the album, on the heels of the recording by Jarry, is thin and anemic in comparison in the way it has been captured. It doesn’t matter as much the longer you allow the album to play, but the lower portion of the instrument is not as good sounding as the middle and high-end.
Shinners’ approach is to allow the attack of each note to work with very clean playing. BWV 961 is played without pedal, compared to the Fantasy in C minor, BWV 921, one of my favorite Bach niche pieces for its interesting harmonic direction. When that section comes, with chords decorated as it is with ornaments, Shinners loses the pedal and the crisp articulation comes back. It’s a very different interpretation than I’m used to, but I enjoyed it.
Overall, this album is a difficult one, as are many that try to couple all these pieces together. They fall outside Bach’s more familiar collections (Partitas, French and English suites, etc.) but they are not throw-aways. I think the solution in a concertized setting is to present these as encores or entre-acts. What helps here is Shinners’ consistent approach to performing them. Which is a curious thing to say, as he is not a consistent player in terms of his interpretations. His technical skills, yes.
Goldfine writes:
These albums are deeply personal, variegated, and idiosyncratic — per Brad’s dictum, only Evan could have put out these recordings, and that’s a great thing. We get to learn more about Bach and about Evan, and through our reactions to both, more about ourselves.
Shinners’ performance of the Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 895, doesn’t go out of his way to make it a “pianistic” piece. Instead, he uses a narrow and consistent touch to not mimic a harpsichord, but at the same time, it doesn’t fully explore the dynamic potential of the piano. He whips out ornaments, especially trills, with consummate ease and varies articulation to highlight the repeated figures and bring attention to them.
The Prelude in C, BWV 933a, showcases a light approach, great tempo, and fantastic trills with nice articulation. In the Prelude and Fughetta in G major, BWV 902, despite his consistent playing style, Shinners infuses the performance with humanity and stronger dynamics. He opts for longer phrase lengths in the fughetta, which may not be the historical way to frame it, but it works well on the piano.
The Fugue in A minor, BWV 947, is played at a good tempo with good attention to the details of the piece; it’s intelligently phrased and articulated. However, the recording quality issues, particularly how the lower portion of the piano is being robbed of its frequencies, are noticeable in this movement.
Conclusion
I have enjoyed an introduction to a new Bach specialist through Goldfine’s project. To be sure, there are other albums, and not all of Shinners’ recordings are on piano. He’s a gifted pianist who I think well-gets Bach’s style and the emotional content of the music.
Maybe a bunch of short pieces doesn’t make for the best concept album, but he’s not the first to perform these works in such a collection and can’t be faulted for grouping them as such.
The biggest thing holding me back from enjoying this album more is the recorded sound quality; it has an artificial gloss to it, as if an artificial, digital reverb has been applied, or else the best microphones weren’t used to capture the acoustic instrument. Or is it a synthesized piano? I can’t say, as no liner notes were provided by Qobuz. Given the possibility that Shinners may be recording these himself may speak to the flatness I detect in how this album was recorded. I do acknowledge the cost involved in having to make professional recordings. His playing however is several notches above the recorded sound. In fairness, this is a 4-star album based upon Shinners' musical presentation.
Don't let the flatness to the album's sound hold anyone back from exploring Shinners’ talent. He’s not as esoteric a pianist as Gould, nor as religiously consistent as Angela Hewitt with her supra-consistent touch, which I actually think is quite appropriate. Shinners has a good feel for the music.
