J.S. Bach / Partita No. 5 in G major, BWV 829 (Kirkpatrick, 1939)

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)

Partita for keyboard No. 5 in G major, BWV 829 (ca. 1726-30)

00:00 - Praeambulum
02:23 - Allemande
04:26 - Courante
05:36 - Sarabande
08:14 - Tempo di Menuetto
09:51 - Passepied
11:37 - Gigue

Performed by Ralph Kirkpatrick (1911-1984). Recorded by Musicraft in 1939.

Teri Noel Towe of Pearl Records: "The Bach Partita No. 5, Italian Concerto, and Ricercare à Tre were among Musicraft's initial releases but, despite the high quality of the performances, they were not an auspicious beginning, either for the label or for Kirkpatrick's recording career.

Most likely because of defective plating of the original matrices, the surfaces, of the Partita particularly, are appallingly noisy. Furthermore, the engineer set the gain too low for at least three of the sides and cranked the volume up as the sides progressed; speed inaccuracies also marred the beginnings of all four sides. (In preparing these transfers, we have done our best to correct the pitch fluctuations and compensate for the volume shifts). Because it was such an engineering calamity, the Partita was deleted almost immediately after release, but the Italian Concerto and the Ricercare à Tre, which are significantly better technically and do not suffer from either volume or pitch inaccuracies, remained in the catalogue for a number of years.

In light of the gritty reality of the situation, the words of the anonymous author of the January 1939 Musicraft publicity brochure announcing the publication of Album No. 25, a six disc 'Harpsichord Recital by Ralph Kirkpatrick', seem both dissembling and unwittingly hilarious: '...it is only now that we are able to offer his long awaited recordings to the public. These were made after months of painstaking tests and experiments, since we felt that nothing at present on records in the field of harpsichord music was completely satisfactory.' The author was absolutely accurate, however, when he next observed that, '[t]he result, as everyone will agree, is something so startling in its fidelity to the actual sound of the harpsichord that it will amaze the most hardened listener', for by the time that Kirkpatrick recorded the 'Harpsichord Recital', Musicraft's engineers were both more reliable and more experienced. Except for a couple of sides that, inexplicably, seem to be dubs and are thus duller than the others, the twelve 12" sides in Album No. 25 are 'state of the art' for the late 1930s."

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