Harpsichord or Piano and how to play Bach

This was first posted in the Naim music forum. I believe it is no longer available.

So much has been said that these comments are bound to be irrelevant. Anyway, let me first address some points made by Ross, which I think deserve attention.

1.Was Bach composing to illiterate folks?

That is a pertinent question, because an organist is supposed to play chorales in such a way that the audience - composed of all sorts of people - will identify the tune and get into the proper mood.

So, yes, Bach was supposed, at least when he was intoning a chorale, to play for illiterate folks. Did he do it? The answer is a resounding no. When he was a young organist he visited Buxtehude - famed for his extremely expressive writing and flamboyant ornamentation. Bach came back flabbergasted and tried to emulate him as best he could (his best was really not very good).

From then on the church goers failed to identify the chorale underneath all the ornamentation and claimed that he modulated far too abruptly. Did he comply? Yes; he ceased preluding altogether: he just played the notes of the hymn. That is: he tacitly said that if he was required to play for ignoramuses he wouldn’t play at all.

More. All his music is extremely complex. Even a simple cantata that may seem at first listen straightforward is a complex work of counterpoint. Sometimes, when he was pressed for time, not very artful or beautiful counterpoint but counterpoint nonetheless.

His keyboard suites - the so called ‘French’, ‘English’ (no one knows why: they are rather French and not English at all, if one is to go by Purcell’s ones) and his keyboard Partitas are different. Counterpoint is perhaps less rigorous (or altogether not important), but the music can be very hard to grasp indeed. For instance, the Gigue of the 6th English Suite was considered, even by Bach students (who had to actually play it - which is quite a treat), ‘difficult’, in the sense that one must really get into the work in order to like it. The Partitas were always considered ‘difficult’ music (except for the first one, regularly played by pianists but not really representative of Bach’s style). The only case where his suites are immediately accessible is the French ones. For instance, the 5th (G major) is marvelous from the first note (but there is a very strange ‘louré’, which most people don’t get off hand).

His organ music is usually rather difficult. The more crying exception is the famous d minor toccata and fugue which some think was not by him at all (I always thought so myself: to begin with the writing and playing technique has nothing to do with Bach). His last Prelude and Fugue (C Major - I mean only the Fugue, the Prelude is straighforward) is such a complex piece of counterpoint you cannot grasp it unless you read it - the theme comes, in the middle of the harmony, in stretti, augmentation and so forth, all in keeping with the crescendo in harmonic stress and almost inaudible given that it is meant to be played with the plenum.

So I think I made my point - ‘abundantly’, you would coldly reply, no doubt.

Shakespeare and contemporary productions. When it is well done, the modern ones can be marvelous, in the sense that they bring a lot of meaning into the play. As far as it doesn’t go against what Shakespeare broadly meant I can like it. The same with Greek Tragedy. Some of the best performances I’ve seen were modernistic. But once, in Greece, I watched a production where the actors got naked and began copulating on the stage (there were women and as you know, they did not perform in ancient Greece). Well… I’m not against copulation, but it did strike me that the Tragedy in question did not require, or even hinted, at such a scene.

Or take a German production of D. Giovanni, where the singers wore Walt Disney masks. D. Giovani himself was Mickey Mouse, and I think the Statue was Goofy - I really don’t know, because I lost patience and got out earlier.

So, being brief and lapidary (I hope) : all is allowed as long as the work itself suggests it.

But there lies the rub: how can we say what the work suggests? Remember the Sixtine Chapel. Before restoration Michelangelo was though as a dark, gloomy, Beethoven-like genius. And after cleaning all had to be rethought - Gesualdo, Monteverdi and others spring to mind, but definitely not Beethoven (or, at least, the 19th Century view of his music - but he himself cultivated that view).

3.What do we know about how Bach wanted his works to be played?

This is really two different questions. What did he want, and what does his music really mean?

We know something about his playing. He, himself, asked explicitly for a ‘cantabile’ style on the harpsichord. This is not easy to achieve, and it suggests some form of legato. But if you look a little deeper, and study the rare cases where he noted down the fingering of his pieces, what emerges is a series of phrases (probably taken at one breath - legato or almost legato) interrupted by places where you just must lift the entire hand. These places are where one would expect them - they occur at the beginning and ending of phrases we identify as such.

Further, when Bach was compared to another outstanding organist of his time, it was explicitly remarked that the other organist played everything staccato and if one was used to Bach’s legato (it is stated as such) one would be disappointed.

Now by legato, on the organ, one does not mean true legato in the romantic sense: rather that each note leads to the next, and to achieve this you have to take into account the reverberation of the church. Again, this brings us back to the ‘cantabile’ notion.

Also, when you consider his solo violin works (there are slurring marks), there are clear intentions that suggest that a very vocal, flowing and phrase-based kind of play.

And, of course, that would be self-evident when you consider his vocal works, where slurring is often noted down.

All this tells us is that, clearly, Bach liked a flowing way of playing.

Another characteristic of Bach is that he played quite fast; this is important because connected to the flow it means his music making must have sounded as a meandering sparkling brook. There are at least two sources supporting that, one of which by Carl-Phillip-Emmanuel himself.

And, the last, very surprising bit of information, comes again from CPE Bach: he says something like: ‘X can’t play my works because he can’t get the necessary fluctuation of tempo; whereas he plays my father’s works, which are much more technically demanding, rather well, because *all you need to do is play the right notes*.

Now I don’t believe this. Certain fugues play themselves, it is true. But take, for instance, the Toccata from the 6th partita. You can’t just play the notes (by the way, in some senses, that is how Gould does it). If you are in the least musical you’ll feel the movement and your playing will carry you into it. So what it means is that Bach can’t be played with huge shifts of tempo - but that, again is self evident from his compositional technique.

5.What does all this mean?

In my opinion, it means that the musical sense of Bach’s music stems from phrasing: flowing phrases that lead one into the other. That is perfectly evident when you try to play but also when you listen to a top notch interpretation. I will surprise some people here, but I will give as a perfect example of the perfect way to interpret Bach Murray Perahia’s English Suites. He does not play legato, but he does capture the flow that is of essence in Bach’s music, and which leads to tension and release.

Are there other ways of capturing this? Yes. Walcha did it, and he played rather stiff; Leonhardt does it, and he is rhythmically very free (to the point of almost alterating what is written) ; Marie Claire Alain does it and she plays tenderly; Christophe Rousset does it, and he plays flowing but crisply; Gilbert does it and he plays in very elegant curves. Scott Ross did it; Kempff did it. And so on. Of course Friedrich Goulda did not do it; and Gould did just the opposite.

Mind you: this is not ‘mere opinion’. If you are honest you will accept that it is informed opinion. I can’t show it more plainly here unless I begin mentioning particular bits of music, which means referring people to go and read the partitions.

There are other aspects of great importance with Bach, which I stated in a previous post. Namely, tension and release and structure (which is another way of saying about the same in the case of Bach). But all this is achieved by carefully controlling the beat, the touch and the rhythmical freedom of each section (by the way, Gould is NOT rhythmically very free: he does play what is written, with a few exceptions; so, Tom, no, that is not why I don’t like Gould).

But even is spite of all that it is possible to play being faithful to the spirit of the music and at the same time play in a totally non historic way. Take, for instance, the prelude and fugue in e minor (the smaller one - I don’t mean the little Preludes: they are not by Bach anyway). Bach almost certainly played it beginning in a toccata like manner and then freeing all the energy of the full organ in the double trilled chords over the thundering pedal notes. Now Walcha (second reading, stereo) plays it softly (no reeds, no mixtures, only soft open pipes) and rather detached. Does it work? Yes, all the terror and desperation are there. He just used different means to get there. Is this a valid interpretation. Undoubtedly.

Or take Stokowsky’s rendering of the Passacaglia. I don’t like it. But is it faithful? I think it is. What he gives us is, magnified under a Technicolor glass, the spirit of the piece.

How do you get the spirit of the piece? By its harmonic structure, its rhythmical characters and the nature of the voice flow. For instance, a very irregular rhythm, several discords, and disjointed voice lines suggest unsettlement. This is the case, for instance, of the great Choral Jesus Christus unser Heiland from the Organ Mass (Clavier Übung III). By the way, why do I claim this piece suggest unsettled emotions in spite of its name - Christ, our Saviour? Because it is *obvious*: music has that effect ion you: it can relax you when it is soft and predictable and progresses in conjoint notes, it can unsettle you if it goes the other way around; it may move you, stir you up, etc because of the movement, tension and excitement the patterns of sound suggest. So, in the case of this Choral, the explanation of the piece must be gathered: the manuals depict extreme disarray; but the pedals intones, in long notes, the melody ‘Christus unser Heiland’. The meaning is, therefore, obvious and in this case, believe me, you don’t need to know to tell apart a C from an A.

Now does disarray *always* follow from disjointed rhythms and large and unpredictable intervals? The ethno-musicological research strongly suggests that it does in all cultures. That is, there are invariants of musical meaning across cultures. Which is only natural: try to move calmly when you are in a frenzy, or try to be extremely brisk when you are very calm: you’ll feel your emotions changing (it may also happen that you just can’t make these kinds of movements).

So why is Gould wrong? Because, as many people have said, he plays almost in contradiction to what the musical patterns suggest and does not respect Bach’s importance of phrasing and flow. And his staccato is, therefore, completely wrong. Does it bring out the polyphony? I don’t think so, but let’s assume that it does: well, in that case we have better like Shakespeare being performed by screaming actors; the words come across in a more clear way.

Why are his Golbergs so famous then? Because, for once, in the last variations, he does capture all the frenzy and enthusiasm (the first versions) that is actually suggested on the page. But listen to his partitas after listening for a time to, say, Leonhardt’s version, and you will know what I mean. Or his 1st book (and even most of the second) of the WTC.

Or, to put it even more bluntly, listen to an aria from the Mass or one of the Passions and then listen carefully to what Gould does with similar melodies (the minore variations of the Goldberg and the Aria itself).

This will be, I hope, my last word on this subject. I think I cannot make myself any clearer.

Regards,

R d S