Bach & Beyond - Gabriela Montero

Customer Rating:
Summary: Back to Bach, Please.
Comment: I wasn't as over-joyed with this CD as I expected to be. I bought it after hearing the title track on FM radio. The title track is, indeed, a jewel; the rest is, in my view, only high-grade "background" music.The pianist is a marvel (and a beauty, too!) - her popularity is easily understandable. She possesses a remarkable gift for transposing and transcribing classic keyboard to "swing" keyboard. Many Bach purists (this one, for example) don't appreciate that, even though we have to admit that a lot of Bach swings, anyway, without transcribing. Lsten to tracks 3 and 4 and you will get your money's worth - they're worth the price.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Fantastic improv
Comment: I heard Gabriela on the public radio station where she asked the host to pick a tune and she would improvise on it. He chose the theme song of the program and she just took off with it for several minutes. She also played one of the songs on the cd which impressed me enough to buy it. The choice of songs and the way she plays them is a dynamic mix ranging from an ethereal adagio to the fun and funky Two-Part Invention in D minor. Never a dull moment, Gabriela is a superbly talented pianist who doesn't disappoint in spicing up some timeless classics.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Beautiful. Fresh. Spiritual. Music as pure as you ever heard before.
Comment: This is a true masterpiece. The artist takes themes from Bach and transforms them in trully original compositions, beeing hard to beleive they are improvisations. They are never boring, always beautiful. She takes one or several Bach themes, puts to work her classical backround, adds some jazz and south american rythms, and comes up with some of the most moving and inspirational music I ever heard. Bravo for Gabriela, this CD is a must for every music lover, classical or not.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Bach Lives
Comment: Bach was known to be at the very top echelon of improvisers; not only was he fond of playing around with his own tunes but he was also known to have borrowed a lick or two from his contemporaries. I have no doubt that he would have enjoyed, if not have been stunned by, the similar efforts of this pianist, Gabriela Montero. This pianist is a very nice techician with lovely lyrical gifts. Her reworkings of some of Bach's most famous tunes range from very close "inhabitings" of Bach's pieces (Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring), to some rather tangental takes on them (Air in G). However, it seems clear that she always undertakes the improvisations with great reverence and humility. Surely in this last trait, she is worthy to ride on Bach's legacy. I particularly enjoyed her infusions of Argentinian rhythms and sensibilities (tango, gaucho) to her reworkings. Repeated listening produces only slightly diminished results. In large part, I began to enjoy the pieces for themselves, not merely as dependants of their originals. I really only have two quibbles with the CD. First, her own piece called 'Beyond Bach' seems more like Bach than beyond him. The title does rattle me for it seems a bit presumptious and not in keeping either with the humility of her playing or her liner notes. Second, Montero's endings to her improvisations never seem to convince me. Her timid exits surely do not follow in the keystrokes of her mentor, the pianist Martha Argerich, one of the best in the business. All in all, minor quibles. In lieu of actually seeing and hearing this pianist at work, this is an enjoyable CD from a young pianist of whose rare gifts we should all take note.

Customer Rating:
Summary: Sublime
Comment: This is compositional improvisation at the highest possible level - stunning - with everything that music is or is supposed to have: the highs, the lows, the emotions, the amazingly transparent technical ability. Not only is she a brilliant performer of such composers as Chopin, Bach, Debussy, Granados and some of the modernists like Prokofiev, but she has entirely absorbed the musical idiom of each one and can call upon it at will in dazzling fashion. I listen to a lot of everything and I am completely blown over with her depth of expression and transcendent musical ability. I have been listening to this CD for the entire weekend and it is recorded well in every respect, from the capturing of the sound of the piano to the spontaneous performances themselves. The highest compliment I can pay her is this: her talent is such that she could make a skeptic believe in God; her many hours of practice aside, I truly believe that's the only place where her amazing musical and compositional gift could possibly come from; for she has said herself that it is not filtered through the mind. I hope to hear her live when I have the chance. What a musical discovery...a treasure.