Korean pianist Sonya Bach has a name that might be either to die for or to dread when it comes to playing Bach.
Her recordings of six of the composer’s keyboard concertos (BWV1052-6 and BWV1058) plus the Italian Concerto for solo keyboard, show a confident, tonally agreeable player who steers a musically well-bred course through all seven works, though she sounds a little stiffer on her own than when working with orchestra.
The interpretative approach is self-consciously neutral, although this sometimes comes across as easy listening rather than judicious reserve. It’s the fleet-fingered brio of the concertos’ fast movements that sounds best.
