Erling Bløndal Bengtsson. Bach Cello Suites Dancord DACO 226 1985 3LP box set 2CD DACOCD 331/2 1988
Recording auditioned on Tidal streaming at CD quality.
Recorded at Emdrup Church Copenhagen March-May 1984.
No information regards cello played. However in a significant entry in Margaret Campbell’s “Great Cellists” she mentions Bengtsson owned a cello by Nicolas Lupot, made in Paris in 1823.
The Cellist.
Although born in Denmark, Bengtsson is referred to as Scandinavian by his own web site and buried in Iceland.
http://www.erlingbb.com/biography.htm
Of particular note is a rather fine over-sized bronze statue that stands in front of Reykjavik’s Concert Hall in Iceland. Many cellists have had their portrait painted but few others apart from Casals have had a statue!
Piatigorsky was his main teacher and in fact for a while Bengtsson was his assistant.
The Recording.
The recording on original LP was made using Teledecs Direct to Metal Mastering process. Whilst I have not been able to obtain a reasonably priced copy of the LPs I do have a similarly recorded copy of the Bach Cello Suites by Jorg Baumann again from 1985. I can confirm that the recording quality is very high and very little surface noise is evident. The acoustic is on the dry side with no significant echo or hint of the Church building influencing the otherwise full bodied sound. There are no discernible noises from the cellist.
The Music.
Margaret Campbell quotes the artist as advising, “Play with character, culture, temperament, conviction, beauty, imagination and variety.
Conveniently, I can testify that all this advice has been applied by Bengtsson to his performance of the Suites. They are full of dynamics, tasteful phrasing and shaping, well chosen tempos, a variety of voicing and rhythmic playing.
He might also have added the advice to play with lots of broad vibrato! For me, this is the only significant detraction of this recording. The sound is clean, well-articulated and pure for the most part, but as soon as a note longer than a crotchet is played the vibrato comes into play. The notes then have a wrung out rather over-dramatic quality, which to me was unsettling. Almost Jekyll and Hyde in character! All the more so as the shorter notes are played with a lovely light airy feeling which allows the sound to rise naturally.
For me this is a deal breaker and I would not want to spend significant sums on hard copy of CD or even more for original LP with this quirk. This is a great pity because there is a great deal of glorious musicality on display otherwise.
A brief listen to other performances such as Schuman’s Fantasiestucke confirm that this style of vibrato is his standard approach.
Summary.
If it were not for the overwrought vibrato I would strongly recommend this recording. If you like plenty of obvious vibrato and an unforced sweet tone then do investigate this recording, firstly on streaming and then you may be inspired to track down a CD or LP version to own and enjoy.
Charles.