Rosen's astonishing recording of Bach's comic masterpiece is brilliant,
humorous, and supremely musical.  It's not just that Rosen is (or was in
the '60's) technically secure to a terrifying degree and gifted with a
technicolor range of touches.  Rosen unselfconsciously makes his points
in bar after bar (which isn't to say the performance exists to make any
specific musicological point, as people erroneously assume upon seeing the
name of the pianist).  Every contrapuntal line is judiciously weighted,
each phrase is lovingly shaped, each trill, each mordent, falls
convincingly into place with a seeming naturalness that could only come
from a musician with such relaxed and justifiable self-confidence.  Rosen
even manage to wring every degree of pathos from the Chopinesque minor key
variations.

-david gable