TV MUSIC REVIEWS : ‘All That Bach,’ Two Portraits on PBS Tonight

Purists beware: Though including performances by such early music notables as Anner Bylsma and Christopher Hogwood, “All That Bach” (at 9 tonight on Channels 28, 15, 24) is not for the stylistically squeamish.

The Canadian production, directed by Larry Weinstein, is essentially a greatest-hits video, an eclectic’s delight of unnarrated short sequences.

Performers range from Maureen Forrester and the Canadian Brass to Bobby McFerrin and the Harmonites steel-drum band; performances from the effortlessly sublime (Keith Jarrett’s cool, fluently serious account of portions of the “Italian” Concerto and a French Suite) to the endlessly silly (an MTV pas de deux to a solo flute saraband, by dancers Robert Desrosiers and Claudia Moore).

The unlikely highlight in inventive freedom is an elegant, joyous performance by the National Tap Dance Co. of Canada--inspired in at least equal measure by ballet, flamenco and parody.

The program also makes an engaging, potentially frustrating, name-that-tune quiz, as the music is only identified--incompletely--after the final credits.

Following “All That Bach” on Channel 28 tonight at 10 (also Sunday at 3:15 p.m.) is “Bravo Gloria,” a moving but bluntly realistic portrait of 33-year-old, mentally retarded Gloria Lenhoff of Costa Mesa, produced by the Cornell University Psychology Film Unit. Music is a central element in her life, and she shares it with palpable joy and dignity.

Another, more illustrious singer’s life is examined, though much less candidly, in “Jessye Norman, Singer” (Channel 28 at 10:30 tonight, and Sunday at 2 p.m.), a BBC production. The program pays thorough attention to Norman’s childhood experiences of the civil rights struggle in Georgia, which seem to have shaped her determination to pursue her own dreams.

The more immediate past is not so well explored. She mentions, without elaboration or real explanation, her decision to live in England and fears of loneliness. Professionally as well as personally--as when she mentions her five-year withdrawal from the stage, and what roles she considers appropriate to her--there are gaps in the candor.

What emerges is genial and frank within its limits, and some wonderful singing. The most extended examples are from the Covent Garden “Ariadne auf Naxos,” in rehearsal and performance clips.

Though Norman claims to have no illusions or concerns about posterity, at least regarding her recorded accomplishments, the program ends on the poignant strains of Dido’s Lament, with its repeated pleas of “Remember me.”