MID WEST RECORD:
On 2 CDs loaded to the gills, this Australian pianist explores what is generally referred to as Bach Opus 1 and covers the ground with a fine toothed comb.  The works and the piano are purely front and center and anyone that wants to get deeper into these relatively underplayed Bach pieces is going to have a fine time rounding out their knowledge of his canon.  Tasty, energetic and engaging, this prize winning interpreter is on the money with a performance that is much more than a bunch of notes played pretty and in the right order.  Simple but certainly hard to replicate, this is one for your collection.
Chris Spector

UK REGIONAL PRESS:
This Australian born pianist has immersed herself so deeply in Bach's music that she's able to play many of the great man's most complex keyboard creations from memory, and she makes her Divine Art debut with this commanding performance of his “Six Partita”. Their sublime marriage of grace, agility and nobility is reflected throughout this splendid 2 CD set.
Kevin Bryan

MUSIC AND VISION:
These performances are thoughtfully appealing, reliably-judged, and largely free of worrying idiosyncrasies. Indeed I can enjoy and appreciate Lambden's balanced J S Bach interpretations in a mood of relaxed , unperturbed concentration ; in some instances when Bach is aired, such peace of mind is not a foregone conclusion .

The one unavoidable caveat: there are several stellar accounts of the partitas to choose from, so, as is often the case, the competition is fierce.

The complete partitas are readily available with Andras Schiff ( Decca Originals, 4758234 ), Craig Sheppard ( recorded live in Seattle, 2005 , on Romeo Records), Angela Hewitt (Hyperion Records, CDA 67191/2 ), Murray Perahia ( Sony BMG 744361 and 722695 ), Rosalyn Tureck (Volume 1, recorded 1949/50, Doremi DHR 7826-27 ) and Maria Tipo ( EMI Gemini 3714572 ); wonderful Bach exponents to be sure.

And who could hold their head up without a Glenn Gould performance; the Partitas are on three volumes of Sony's The Original Jacket Collection : Nos 1 and 2, Vol 10, 88697147592 , Nos 3 and 4, Vol 17, 88697147732 , and Nos 5 and 6, Vol 4, 88697147502 .

Preferences will always differ, but each one of the six complete recorded partitas (above) has enough going for it to worthily fill your No 1 choice. My inclination is to cheat and select two recordings -- Hewitt and Gould .

A monumental recording of Johann Sebastian Bach 's complete piano works by Brazilian pianist Joâo Carlos Martins (born in 1940 in Sao Paolo) is available on a Labor Records collection comprising nineteen CDs, 338 works, and 19½ hours of music. The recordings were made at Pomona College, Claremont, California, USA in 1995. Labor has released the partitas as a two-disc set.

In 1949 the legendary Alfred Cortot proclaimed: 'With this kind of tone, with the ability of his fingers, Martins could become very important for the history of piano playing.' Martins' biography reads like Baron Munchhausen or Jack Kerouac.

Returning to Ms Lambden, I'd be happier with her considered accounts had she displayed a rather wider dynamic compass. In addition, on occasions the forward direction sags a little as in the Sarabande BWV 825.

From Australia (the home of Peter Dawson, Eileen Joyce, Percy Grainger , Nellie Melba and Joan Sutherland ), Lambden graduated at the Melbourne University Conservatorium with a BMus (Hons). For a further seven years in Melbourne she won many prizes and broadcast for ABC National Radio. A Clarke Scholarship enabled her to study for three years at the Royal College of Music in London , UK. In her final RCM year she was awarded the Hopkinson Gold Medal and the Norris Prize. Subsequently, in Siena, Italy , she studied harpsichord with long time Wanda Landowska pupil and associate, Ruggero Gerlin.

It may be argued that collectors who want the very crème de la crème need to opt for separate recordings of the partitas with one of the above; as a back-up.

Search where you will across the planet -- in the first B flat Partita you'll find no more sublime recording than the legendary Abbey Road performance of Dinu Lipatti (1917-1950). Since it first appeared, this miraculous account has never been out of circulation. (EMI Great Recordings Of The Century , 67003 .)

Serious Bach collectors should seek out two other accounts.

The first is Slovenian pianist and music teacher Dubravka Tomsic's Partita No 1 (1987). This marvellous alternative wound up on four separate labels (among them Stradivari Classics, Madacy Records, and Pilz). Tomsic was born in Dubrovnik, Croatia, in 1940.

For Partita No 2 in C minor, you cannot hope to do better than buy, beg, borrow or steal Rosalyn Tureck's momentous live 1995 performance, heard during her all-Bach recital in the St Petersburg Great Hall of the Philharmonic. It's available on two labels -- Ermitage ERM 426-2 and Video Artists Intl's VAIA 1131 . She also has Partita No 2 together with No 1 in B Flat and No 6 in E Minor on VAIA 1040 .

Delve around 'on-line' and you'll find fine separate (CD) partita performances that will have you in a Bach nirvana.

Another case in point: Partita No 6 in E minor comes in a superlative performance (Orfeo ORF 547011 , 2001) with Russian trained, Baden-Baden resident, Elena Kuschnerova.

At various times Lambden was tutored by Phyllis Sellick, Kendall Taylor, Lamar Crowson, Nadia Boulanger and Paul Badura-Skoda, and an award from the Dutch Government enabled her to study harpsichord for a year with Gustav Leonhardt in Amsterdam.

During twenty three years of residence in England, Lambden performed extensively there and throughout Europe. She broadcast for the BBC and Radio Hilversum and gave recitals at Universities -- Oxford, Durham, Colchester, Leicester, Surrey and London. She also played and recorded as harpsichordist with the Dolmetsch Ensemble.

More recently (back in Australia), she taught at the Victorian College of the Arts. In 1985 she became an AMEB ( Australian Music Examinations Board) examiner, as well as being an assessor for VCAA (Victorian Curriculum and Assessment Authority).

Though there's a great deal to admire in her Bach performances, from time to time she proceeds with an unsettling sense of diffidence. One instance I found is in the brief 'Air' from Partita No 6.

Nonetheless, overall I was at ease with the larger part of this Bach recital, revealing Judith Lambden worthy of a place among Australia's celebrated concert pianists, past and present: Tessa Birnie, Tamara Anna Cislowska, Ignaz Friedman, Eileen Joyce, Roger Woodward, Noel Mewton-Wood, Piers Lane, Geoffrey Parsons, Geoffrey Tozer and naturalized Australian Isador Goodman.
Howard Smith

GRAMOPHONE:
No surface polish or sophisticated pianism here. Judith Lambden's style is of a homely unpretentiousness, cut from an unconventional cloth. She senses power and gravity in these Partitas, embodying as they do music of “grand scale and virtuoso technical demands” ( Richard DP Jones, The Cambridge Companion to Bach ), yet intellectually always on the highest level.

Stylistically, Lambden might also be seen as anachronistic. She observes most repeats but, invariably, uses no decoration the second time round. Nor does she change dynamics or alter her touch, so there's no opportunity to experience another view of the music. Double-dotting where implied in, say, the opening movements of Nos 2, 2 and 6 is eschewed, but playing literally as written evokes an expansiveness in the music that fits her views. Lambden's Bach is conceptually of a weighty dignity but her expression of the music follows a very inconstant course.

Immediately noticeable through is the even balancing of the parts, the left hand given parity with the right, the fabric clear. But this also highlights a curious mixture of good keyboard command and maladroit control that runs throughout this set, an example of which is the Corrente of No 1. Lambden sets off at a considered pace but soon shows signs of rhythmic insecurity, and what are probably meant to be flexible responses to the ebb and flow of melody turn out to be awkward breaks in the pulse that interrupt continuity. The line sags and the beating heart of the music falters. This, more or less, is the pattern for many of the movements, and there is some effortful or ungainly playing too.

What of the good keyboard command that's also manifest? Try the Sarabande and Burlesca of No 3, the Courante and Aria of No 4, the Corrente and Sarabande of No 5 or the last three movements of No 6. The disparities are wide - and puzzling. But why ponder? Angela Hewitt, Andreas Schiff (piano) and Robert Woolley (harpsichord) complement one another to give a great degree of satisfaction.
Nalen Anthoni