CD-Charts Position 1
Average Rating:

Handel: Suites for Keyboard

CD-Charts > Music > ( J )
from: Ecm Records

Release Date January 25, 2000
Keith Jarrett reminds and illustrates with this CD how much Johann Sebastian Bach was influenced by Friedrich Handel. Keith Jarrett is able to capture the richness and mathematical perfection in this pieces as Glenn Gould is able to capture them for instance in Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations. I was surpiresed that Jarrett with his Jazz background was able to play this pieces in such a neio classical clarity. I actally expected the CD to have a Jazz influence like we have with Jaques Loussier when he plays pieces of Bach. As already mentioned, the pieces illustrate, how much Johann Sebastian Bach's music and clarity was influenced and inspired by Friedrich Handel. Keith Keith Jarrett proved to me that he is a great Pianist and ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 2
Average Rating:

Shostakovich: 24 Preludes & Fugues op. 87 / Jarrett

CD-Charts > Music > ( J )
by: Keith Jarrett

Release Date January 25, 2000
I am not a music "expert" so you may take this review with a grain of salt. I know what I like and this is amazing. Absolutely beautiful. In my humble opinion, it is warmer, more nuanced, and less rigid than the Nikolaieva or Ashkenazy versions. This would be on my "desert island" Top 5 list, no question about it.

CD-Charts Position 3
Average Rating:

Mozart: Piano Concertos nos. 271, 453, and 466 / Davies, Jarrett

CD-Charts > Music > ( J )
from: Ecm Records

Release Date October 05, 1999
Keith Jarrett is a tremendously impressive artist. He switches gears between jazz and classical, between solo and orchestral work, in a seemingly effortless manner. One would never assume that the pianist on this recording is a renowned jazzman, but so he is. This recording features some of my favorite Mozart concertos and it will NOT disappoint.

CD-Charts Position 4
Average Rating:

Georg Friedrich Händel: Suites For Keyboard

CD-Charts > Music > ( J )
from: Ecm Records

Release Date September 12, 1995
There is no need to belabour the excellences of Keith Jarrett's performances of Handel's keyboard suites. The playing has the lyrical flow that other Amazon.com and Amazon.ca reviewers almost unanimously praise so lavishly and so rightly; even when Jarrett choses at times to play somewhat détaché, he never pokes, bangs, or thumps, as so many other keyboard players tend (whether on the piano or the harpsichord) to do. The phrasing of the music is so beautifully delineated that one simply would have to look long and far, indeed, to find the equal of such 'keyboardmanship' (in Bach's or in Handel's music)! Will Jarrett eventually grace his many admirers also with performances on organ (of music from whatever period that he may care to choose) or even on clavichord? ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 5
Average Rating:

Bach: Goldberg Variations / Keith Jarrett

CD-Charts > Music > ( J )
by: Keith Jarrett

Release Date April 18, 2000
I have listened to Glenn Gould perform these variations with mastery for such a long time, I admit that a bias is there. Mr. Jarrett has done a wonderful job performing, but he has not elevated to Gould's level. Sorry to Keity Jarrett fans, but he's no Glenn Gould.

CD-Charts Position 6
Average Rating:

Franz Schubert: Quintet, D. 956 (C major)

CD-Charts > Music > ( J )
from: Sony

Release Date October 25, 1990
"The performance of this great work is warm and flexible, and the ensemble with Bernard Greenhouse (until recently a member of the Beaux Arts Trio) as the extra cellist is admirable.
I liked the way the long first movement's exposition repeat is observed and the tenderness of the second subject as well as its slightly more relaxed tempo, which is convincingly integrated into the whole. The development rightly has a glimpse of mortality too, and so indeed has the disturbingly grim coda, thus giving a truly late-Schubertian expressive balance. The opening and closing melody of the ineffable Adagio has a wide tonal palette serving expressive depth and a quietly purposeful gait that neither falters nor hurries: here the present issue has the advantage over the Lindsay Quartet ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 7
Average Rating:

Mozart: Maurerische Trauermusik K477; Concertos for piano No21

CD-Charts > Music > ( J )
from: Ecm Records

Release Date October 15, 1996
The German label ECM offers some provoking thoughts on Mozart's music, especially his piano concertos, on a double album featuring pianist Keith Jarrett, with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra conducted by Dennis Russell Davies. I almost said "jazz pianist" Keith Jarrett, for that is what he was invariably called for years until he began to explore the classics out in the open. His best-known previous classical recording was Bach's Goldberg Variations in which he exhibited some similarities to the legendary Glenn Gould in terms of digital clarity and freedom of expression. Critics were divided over whether this was a welcome return to a style once considered utterly unique, or a reprehensible form of imitation.

Now Jarrett has brought his clean, no-nonsense sound to ... Read More:

CD-Charts Position 8
Average Rating:

Jarrett: Bridge of Light

CD-Charts > Music > ( J )
from: Ecm Records

Release Date April 18, 2000
The five-movement piano and violin sonata is worth the price of the disk. Jarrett fans will not recognize his hand in this. It lies somewhere in a triangle between Ravel, Shostakovich and Alban Berg. Each movement is compelling in its own way; the fourth movement reaches a tense, transfixing climax. I also like the first piece on the disk, for violin soloist and string orchestra. I have not been able to appreciate the piece for oboe and strings or the piece for viola and full orchestra; maybe that's my fault. It doesn't matter, because the piano/violin sonata is a revelation.

CD-Charts Position 9
Average Rating:

Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1 / Keith Jarrett

CD-Charts > Music > ( J )
by: Keith Jarrett

Release Date April 18, 2000
It becomes hot performance from the fugue of A major, though the first half of 24 preludes and fugue are performed, as it were, indifferently. The sixteenth notes of the A major fugue is brilliant. The fugue of the last B minor is a masterpiece. I think his Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2, played by harpsichord, is better.

CD-Charts Position 10
Average Rating:

Mendelssohn: String Quartets Nos. 1 & 2, Opp. 12 & 13

CD-Charts > Music > ( J )
from: Sony

Release Date January 19, 1999
It becomes hot performance from the fugue of A major, though the first half of 24 preludes and fugue are performed, as it were, indifferently. The sixteenth notes of the A major fugue is brilliant. The fugue of the last B minor is a masterpiece. I think his Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2, played by harpsichord, is better.