CCMusic.com

Albert Einstein already knew: If you are looking for the world formula, you will find it in Johann Sebastian Bach. This is true not only for the Art of the Fugue, the Goldberg Variations or the St. Matthew Passion: here Elisaveta Blumina presents a Bach of dance in a very personal piano album inspired by the now legendary Steinway concert grand "Manfred Bürki" from 1901. Elisaveta Blumina actually wanted to become a ballerina - but much to her chagrin at the time and our delight today, she was discarded from the company as a towering teenager - despite great talent. She nevertheless retained her unerring sense of momentum and rhythm as a pianist, and this audibly benefits the suites and partitas on this new production. For even if Bach creates highly artificial gems out of the traditional dance forms, Blumina still let's us feel the swing that makes the individual movements pulsate. As a synaesthete, Blumina also has a very special relationship with the key characteristics so important to Bach. The radiant E major of the French Suite BWV 817 becomes a sun-drenched event under her hands, while the C minor Partita BWV 826 exudes a solemn festivity. The pictures attached to the lavishly designed booklet show the colourful creative power of this versatile artist. Blumina unleashes a veritable firework with the highly virtuosic C minor Fantasy BWV 906, to which the English Suite in D minor BWV 811 with it's monumental Prelude stands in the greatest possible contrast.