Interventions into Bach & Mozart
Vyacheslav Guyvoronsky
Leo Records CD LR 534
Resulting from a dream where he says the composers suggested to Russian trumpeter Vyacheslav Guyvoronsky that he write additional parts for two of Bach’s and one of Mozart’s keyboard works, these “Inventions” are as musical as they are memorable.
Guyvoronsky, who studied trumpet at the Leningrad Conservatory, is most audacious on Inventions II based on Bach’s Art of the Fugue. Partnered by violinist Vladislav Pesin, the players partially deconstruct and roughen the familiar composition. Leaving space for the violinist’s lyrical expansion, this interpretation uniquely bustles. Facing ascending grace-note smears and rubato abrasive echoes from Guyvoronsky, Pesin’s strategy is staccato and presto, encompassing angled spiccato and triple-stopping, with col legno sweeps so extreme they seem to be furrowing the fiddle’s wood.
Built on Bach’s French Partita, Inventions I is for flute, accordion, trumpet, bass and soprano voice. Singing in French, Ariadna Koryagina’s agile tessitura intertwines polyphonically with Grigory Voskoboinikov’s burbling bass line, Evelyn Petrova’s contrapuntal bellows pump and heraldic brass flourishes. Slightly cheeky, somewhat stop-time and always contrapuntal, the instruments add rococo detailing everywhere and swing at points, throwing into bold relief Koryagina’s subtle and supple interpretation. This half-hour-plus compositional re-think wraps up with a bass string slap. Inventions III, after Mozart’s Sonata C-dur, is a humorous bagatelle for violin (Pesin), cello (Vladimir Guyryushov), and piano, most notable for the light touch and sprinkled arpeggios of pianist Polina Fradkina.
The CD confirms that with skill, familiar compositions – especially Bach’s – can be distinctively re-interpreted.
