Your Preferred Bach Pianist

[Sergeant Rock]

I can't agree.  For me, characteristics such as monotony and degree of warmth/humanity rest with the performer, not the type of instrument.

I understand the fault is mine...the way my ears and brain work, I suppose...but in over 40 years of listening I've been unable to make a breakthrough. The harpischord as a music making device is as interesting to me as a sewing machine--no matter who is playing it.

Sarge

[Bulldog]

Bulldog
We have not done our job well if we can muster only two votes (yours and mine) from 19 voters for Craig Sheppard and his excellent set of piano partitas (best I have heard), seems he will remain a well kept secret......

especially since you allow a generous 20 votes per person.......

The fact that Sheppard records for the small Romeo label doesn't help his numbers.  He's now recorded the complete WTC and the Inventions/Sinfonias in addition to the Partitas - all are wonderful performances.

Of those artists currently ahead of Sheppard, he leaves Perahia/Gavrilov/Hewitt in the dust.

[Bulldog]

I understand the fault is mine...the way my ears and brain work, I suppose...but in over 40 years of listening I've been unable to make a breakthrough. The harpischord as a music making device is an interesting to me as a sewing machine--no matter who is playing it.

Sarge

Understood.  When you don't like the sound of a particular instrument, there's little reason to keep listening to it.

[DavidW]

I'm with Sarge, the sound of the harpsichord is too abrasive and draws my attention to it instead of the music.

[Bulldog]

I'm with Sarge, the sound of the harpsichord is too abrasive and draws my attention to it instead of the music.

Although I love the harpsichord, I have to agree that it can sound abrasive at times.  When that happens, I just turn the volume down a little.  However, I have my moments where "abrasive" is exactly what I want.

[DavidW]

Although I love the harpsichord, I have to agree that it can sound abrasive at times.  When that happens, I just turn the volume down a little.  However, I have my moments where "abrasive" is exactly what I want.

Yeah turning down the volume helps, using speakers and not headphones also.  Actually using speakers it's not that bad, but with headphones I feel assaulted worse than Penderecki's Threnody!!

[Antoine Marchand]

Only occasionally do I listen to Bach on the piano. Like Marc I can say, that the piano does not work for me in this repertoire. Of course it is not wrong to use the piano, since Bach can be played on everything - even mouth organ or marimba, but what annoys me is the tendency every pianist has got to romanticise the music, and it seems unfortunately to be an irresistible part of piano playing to play much legato and to manipulate with the dynamics. So I have no favorite Bach pianist.

Apparently, the preferences for the piano over the harpsichord are rather obvious on this board (this poll has 45 replies, while the poll on the harpsichordists just 13) and the people that only listen to Bach on harpsichord (like you, Q, Marc, me and others) seems to be a minority even into this already small "classical" world.

Personally, I enjoy some performances on piano –principally Gould, not your favorite pianist, I know -, but Bach played on piano always sounds to me like a transcription, not the original: the same piece, but thought with other head, other ideas and other sensibility, principally Romantic, and not following the sonorities and principles that Bach probably had in mind.

IMO, instruments are not mere interchangeable accessories because they involve a concrete approach to the real world –understood in a certain way, too- and replies to specific requirements of space, occasion, tonalities, related affetti, etc., especially in the case of a man so practical like Bach.

But, obviously, these are not the predominant ideas. 

[Bulldog]

Apparently, the preferences for the piano over the harpsichord are rather obvious on this board (this poll has 45 replies, while the poll on the harpsichordists just 13) and the people that only listen to Bach on harpsichord (like you, Q, Marc, me and others) seems to be a minority even into this already small "classical" world.

I notice that 21 members have voted on this thread, but only 8 on the harpsichord poll.

I consider myself a fortunate man for loving Bach on all types of keyboard instruments, but there are some instruments I don't fully appreciate (especially the flute and guitar).

Another pet-peeve I have is when Bach's keyboard works or those of other baroque composers are referred to as "piano" works.  A good example is the BIS/Sudbin disc of Scarlatti's sonatas titled on the cover as "piano sonatas" - that really irks me.

[Antoine Marchand]

I consider myself a fortunate man for loving Bach on all types of keyboard instruments, but there are some instruments I don't fully appreciate (especially the flute and guitar).

Same here about the guitar, maybe if Bach had composed something for that instrument... But I love the flute and the recorder: all those flute sonatas and the cantatas and instrumental music where the recorder has marvelous parts.

Another pet-peeve I have is when Bach's keyboard works or those of other baroque composers are referred to as "piano" works.  A good example is the BIS/Sudbin disc of Scarlatti's sonatas titled on the cover as "piano sonatas" - that really irks me.

I recall Jaccottet's version of the WTC called "The Well-Tempered Piano" on Pilz. 

[karlhenning]

I recall Jaccottet's version of the WTC called "The Well-Tempered Piano" on Pilz. 

Curiously, that is how the disc jacket is printed.  Weird.

[springrite]

I recall Jaccottet's version of the WTC called "The Well-Tempered Piano" on Pilz. 

Appropriate, isn't it? Considering "Well Tempered" is translated into English, why not the second word? It really should be "Well Tempered Piano", "Well Tempered Keyboard", or "Das Wohltermperierte Klavier".

[Bulldog]

Same here about the guitar, maybe if Bach had composed something for that instrument...

Perhaps.  I do like electric guitar/rock music.  That's what I grew up with.

[Josquin des Prez]

Same here about the guitar, maybe if Bach had composed something for that instrument...

http://www.amazon.com/LOeuvre-Luth-Johann-Sebastian-Bach/dp/B000067FG3/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1270834390&sr=8-18



Close enough. Notice that the real masterpiece here is the Suite in c minor, BWV 997. The rest is just gravy.

[Marc]

I understand the fault is mine... [....]

Sarge, another puzzling reaction.
Fault?
There is no fault in following one's own hearing and taste.

[....] the way my ears and brain work, I suppose...but in over 40 years of listening I've been unable to make a breakthrough. The harpischord as a music making device is as interesting to me as a sewing machine--no matter who is playing it.

Sarge

There you are. It's your hearing, not your fault.
I must say though, considering the harpsichord, that IMO in the last three or four decades some real beauties appeared in the concert halls and on recordings. Before those years, some of them sounded like a rusty sewing machine indeed.

[Verena]

I recall Jaccottet's version of the WTC called "The Well-Tempered Piano" on Pilz.  ...

Appropriate, isn't it? Considering "Well Tempered" is translated into English, why not the second word? It really should be "Well Tempered Piano", "Well Tempered Keyboard", or "Das Wohltermperierte Klavier".

German "Clavier" is not the same as "Klavier" (piano), as far as I know. The word "Clavier", as opposed to Klavier, is no longer used today, but in Bach's time "Clavier" was used to refer to keyboards more generally (including harpsichord, organ, clavichord). I think that's why one recording by a musician whose name that has just slipped my mind uses both harpsichord and organ. So "Well-Tempered Piano" is probably not accurate. (Afterthought: I may be mistaken, perhaps "piano" can be used in the sense of "keyboard"?)

[Antoine Marchand]

Appropriate, isn't it? Considering "Well Tempered" is translated into English, why not the second word? It really should be "Well Tempered Piano", "Well Tempered Keyboard", or "Das Wohltermperierte Klavier".

I don't think so. "Keyboard" is generic and the piano is a specific kind of keyboard, known by Bach just in its primitive form as "fortepiano". Additionally, Jaccottet plays a harpsichord or cembalo, i. e., a different kind of keyboard. 

[Antoine Marchand]

http://www.amazon.com/LOeuvre-Luth-Johann-Sebastian-Bach/dp/B000067FG3/ref=sr_1_18?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1270834390&sr=8-18



Close enough. Notice that the real masterpiece here is the Suite in c minor, BWV 997. The rest is just gravy.

Close, indeed. But currently some people is thinking that Bach composed those pieces for lute-harpsichord (lautenwerck). That would explain the supposed unidiomatic character of some of his pieces for lute. 

[Josquin des Prez]

Close, indeed. But currently some people is thinking that Bach composed those pieces for lute-harpsichord (lautenwerck). That would explain the supposed unidiomatic character of some of his pieces for lute. 

Some of those pieces are also transcriptions of other works. The BWV 997 is the only genuine masterpiece in the whole set. If i remember correctly, it was dedicated to Leopold Weiss, who was a good friend of Bach.

[kishnevi]

I notice that 21 members have voted on this thread, but only 8 on the harpsichord poll.

I consider myself a fortunate man for loving Bach on all types of keyboard instruments, but there are some instruments I don't fully appreciate (especially the flute and guitar).

Another pet-peeve I have is when Bach's keyboard works or those of other baroque composers are referred to as "piano" works.  A good example is the BIS/Sudbin disc of Scarlatti's sonatas titled on the cover as "piano sonatas" - that really irks me.

I voted on this thread but not the harpischord thread.  My reason is simple: while I have heard more than a few of the pianists, my exposure to the harpsichord side of the argument is limited.  I have precisely seven Bach on harpsichord recordings: Staier's recital of various "early works"; Gilbert's WTC I,  Verlet's Partitas, Maroney's French Suites, Egarr's Goldberg and WTC I,  and Leonhard's Partitas and English Suites (packaged as a four CD set, which is why I think of it as one recording).  Not exactly a deep field.

[Bulldog]

Yea true it's less sensative, dynamic and a narrower palette... very thin, clicky and irritating sounding after awhile ... even a genius musician like Glenn Gould said something to the effect that the modern piano was better suited or the perfect instrument ..to explore Bach's polyphonic style, and he was right ... it's no contest. It offers a much much richer and wider range of options to the performer for delving into something like Bach, making things more exciting to listen to. ..

I definitely do not find Bach on piano inherently more exciting or exploratory than on harpsichord.  Once again, I'll repeat that I feel it's all on the performer.