J.S. Bach on the Organ

[Mandryka]

What Cates does is sometimes referred to as staggering the musical lines; to me, the results are compelling.

Ah yes, I remember now you talked about it in your review. Who else staggers as much as Cates?

[alyosha]

I do not quite understand your point about dissonance. Is dissonance harder to execute on an organ to great effect? Think of the g-minor Fantasy BWV 542.

I apologize if i've been unclear. I'm bursting with questions and thoughts, and i'm trying not to blather on and take up too much space; so i edit myself heavily, sometimes it seems too heavily.

I was not at all saying "dissonance [is] harder to execute on an organ to great effect", and indeed you give a perfect example. I was referring only to a particular aspect of the instruments and a correspoding resource in composition and performance. My comments started and remain in the context of

My sense is that playing pieces more clearly intended for harpsichord (or string keyboard) on organ is the trickier way to go. Many of these pieces rely on fast decay or anyway the relative predominance of attack to show the way through thick textures, which sustained on organ can become muddled.

I'm only saying that between full sustain on organ at the one extreme, and notes cut off / non-overlapping at the other (i'll speak to hall reverberation in a moment), the large ratio of attack to sustain on harpsichord offers a middle range. And one specific technique making use of that is to stagger the onsets of the notes, so they can be heard both serially and in sustain. And in more dissonant cases this is especially helpful, both re the legibility of individual notes, and softening the harshness of dissonance. The theme here is a kind of having it both ways at once. This can of course be done in a way on the organ, but the attack/sustain balance is very different, and it's my belief that this matters a lot to the listener and the composer.

[Edit: It might help to add: I find this distinction quite significant even between harpsichord and the much more common modern piano versions...]

Re hall reverberation as a kind of instrumental sustain: This is just the kind of thing i'm having revelations about as i delve into organ music, so i extra- thank you for bringing it up and helping me to hear with fresh ears. Including how this can serve a similar attack/decay function. On the other hand it's probably obvious that it's not entirely comparable, especially because it's constant, in this context somewhat like a harpsichord with no dampers.

So i'm highlighting one option, one "advantage" the harpsichord (etc) has over the organ, and how it's especially helpful re dissonance. But there are many dis/advantages to both instruments, and we obviously agree that transcription translation between them is a welcome thing, and that it's fine and HIP to make appropriate changes to the score, etc. Changes made due to "trickiness" -- which i subjectively weigh as greater in one direction. If you disagree, and feel that both are about the same, or that organ->harpsichord is instead the trickier direction overall, i would accept that with interest and listen with fresh ears. 

[alyosha]

Well, you know that I don't find the HIP/nonHIP distinction particularly helpful, and the case of Rüsbam is a good illustration of why.  I suspect Rübsam would say that his style is as informed as anyone's.

Please take this in a respectful and playful spirit! But i will trust my lying ears over what a performer says. I grew up on things like Isaac Stern playing Bach concerti with frantic vibrato in front of huge orchestras; and he could have taught a seminar about all the things he was doing differently, following the "composer's intent", than his interpretation of Brahms. Yet i remain unconfused that this is not what we call HIP. As i alluded to before: post- wide dissemination of HIP, and in the postmodern context, there will of course be all kinds of blends, which i welcome enthusiastically. But in my view the grey areas do not undermine the value of pointing out areas that are (pretty darn) black and white.

For  what it's worth my own thinking about music was very much inspired by politics raher than history, especially the paper on Talking Politics in the Bach Year by Susan McClary, and the book on Noise by Jacques Attali.

Thank you -- i'm looking into both of those (in other tabs as i type). This is a realm that i'm familiar with, though not much in relation to classical music. These also, in a so-far vague and intuitive way, illuminate some of your other posts. Not to impose, but i would be very interested in any explicit connections you'd care to make between these ideas and say Bach, in direct response or whenever it comes up.

[alyosha]

Who else staggers as much as Cates?

Robert Hill jumps to mind. He unfortunately does not do the French in the Hanssler set, but this should be close enough to compare playing styles:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005LE98E4/
http://www.allmusic.com/album/bach-as-teacher-keyboard-works-from-the-c%C3%B6then-period-mw0001835346
There's also a little French i saw on youtube. Tell us what you think!

[alyosha]

[...] I do not think that these Partitas (because of their prevalent  two-part or three-part writing) should be played on a big organ with 16F plenum up to mixtures, but that only 8F and 4F principals and flutes should be used, registrations of a kind which also seem optimal for the Triosonatas. 

It's out of the order i have on my mental list of questions, but now that you kind of bring it up...

I'm interested in hearing Bach organ (be the playing style HIP, not, grey, undefined, all of the above ) with very simple registrations, such as you describe above. I mean, on pieces that aren't usually played that way, like the intros-and-fugues.

[Edit: One part of my interest, relating to posts just above, is in what would be kiiiind of an organ -> harpsichord/piano translation, played on organ! ... ]

Any ideas, anyone?

[Mandryka]

Thank you -- i'm looking into both of those (in other tabs as i type). This is a realm that i'm familiar with, though not much in relation to classical music. These also, in a so-far vague and intuitive way, illuminate some of your other posts. Not to impose, but i would be very interested in any explicit connections you'd care to make between these ideas and say Bach, in direct response or whenever it comes up.

Well one  thought is that Bach was working with multiple traditions -- German, French and Italian. And these traditions brought with them very different social and  political associations -- German old style religiosity, pre-enlightenment; French tasteful formal court music; vigorous, highly forward driven, combat-style Italian concertos. You can see Bach as the great synthesis maker, creating highly stable order out of what seem like opposites. Or you could see his music as a less than stable amalgam of these incompatible, contradictory  traditions. Dissonance is about disorder. And to some extent so is the sort of agogics that I hear sometimes in Rubsam.

The important point is that the styles were meaningful philosophically, connected to ideas about the enlightenment, monarchy, the individual, society. And hence Bach's music was full of meaning.

And I guess I want to say that a good 21st century performance of a piece of Bach makes him our contemporary because it goes some way to  recapturing some of the original tension, some of the original spirit of putting things together which may not entirely cohere. I think Harnoncourt at his best goes some way to doing that, for example.

[Sammy]

Ah yes, I remember now you talked about it in your review. Who else staggers as much as Cates?

If i remember correctly, Curtis in his French Suites set.

[alyosha]

Ah yes, I remember now you talked about it in your review. Who else staggers as much as Cates?

If i remember correctly, Curtis in his French Suites set.

When i suggested Hill, i was mostly interpreting "staggering of lines" to mean expressive non-synchrony. This would also seem to fit, AFAICT, with Mandryka's interest in music that risks falling apart but is held together by the performer (or composer?).

I like Curtis doing the French Suites, and i hear rubato, but pretty much all coherent and well under control, no chaos threatening...unfortunately.

[milk]

When i suggested Hill, i was mostly interpreting "staggering of lines" to mean expressive non-synchrony. This would also seem to fit, AFAICT, with Mandryka's interest in music that risks falling apart but is held together by the performer (or composer?).

I like Curtis doing the French Suites, and i hear rubato, but pretty much all coherent and well under control, no chaos threatening...unfortunately.

How about Bradley Brookshire (for the French)?

[alyosha]

Well one  thought is that Bach was working with multiple traditions -- German, French and Italian. And these traditions brought with them very different social and  political associations -- German old style religiosity, pre-enlightenment; French tasteful formal court music; vigorous, highly forward driven, combat-style Italian concertos. You can see Bach as the great synthesis maker, creating highly stable order out of what seem like opposites. Or you could see his music as a less than stable amalgam of these incompatible, contradictory  traditions. Dissonance is about disorder. And to some extent so is the sort of agogics that I hear sometimes in Rubsam.

The important point is that the styles were meaningful philosophically, connected to ideas about the enlightenment, monarchy, the individual, society. And hence Bach's music was full of meaning.

And I guess I want to say that a good 21st century performance of a piece of Bach makes him our contemporary because it goes some way to  recapturing some of the original tension, some of the original spirit of putting things together which may not entirely cohere. I think Harnoncourt at his best goes some way to doing that, for example.

This is great stuff. I immediately wonder how all this played out in Bach's mind; what the biographical record reveals, what we can re/construct now. (It's crazy how little i've researched him. I wish i had the time now but i just don't...) For example: did he see himself (or market himself to conservative church employers) as sacralizing foreign secular musics? Or was he (unconsciously?), while certainly devout, breaking out in disruptive radical directions, cultural and maybe theological? How "incompatible, contradictory" were his churchly vs secular employments (including the preferred ones he didn't get), and the conceptions of music that went with them? Etc?

[Not expecting answers -- just sharing where my mind goes with these fascinating ideas.]

[Mandryka]

Re Hill, I think he's absolutely wonderful at playng counterpoint. One of the things I'm thinking about is how his way with counterpoint is different from Leonhardt's. I've been playng Leonhardt's DHM AoF and Hill's record of it for Hänssler. Hill seems to play more often for resolution and equilibrium, Leonhardt more often for tension, at least that's my preliminary impression. I wouldn't be surprised if these two styles of counterpoint are reflections of their different ideas about what Bach's music is about.

[alyosha]

Ok, further noob questions about the Bach organ as instrument, this time re "touch sensitive".

I've read about how the speed at which a key is depressed can change how a pipe speaks. And i'm sure i've heard the difference here and there...without realizing that's what was happening. So i could use help getting a better understanding:

   
• How widespread is this effect: How common is it for organs and stops have a clearly noticeable difference? I would assume it's only significant with simple registration and particular stops. Or is it a technique at use throughout baroque organ playing?
• What are the bounds on a Bach-HIP expressive use of this effect? Can it vary note-by-note, and by degrees, analogous to dynamics on a piano? Or is it more "terraced": a similar touch used for an entire phrase/voice?
• Is it even possible to use a variety of touches when playing quickly, as one can on the piano? Here i'm speculating about what the mechanisms allow, music geek meets physics geek -- which of course means i could be completely wrong... It partly depends on how much more slowly the key needs to be pressed to make a difference, which i also don't know. (I've never played on a tracker organ.)
• I don't know how many other people are as interested in these details, and what would be asking too much. But i'd love it if someone would post examples. I have the naxos library, but for the widest audience i guess youtube is the most accessible, or files to download. I feel apologetic -- but i (and there must be others) am a long way from being able to confidently identify this effect by ear.

Extra thanks!

[prémont]

I'm only saying that between full sustain on organ at the one extreme, and notes cut off / non-overlapping at the other (i'll speak to hall reverberation in a moment), the large ratio of attack to sustain on harpsichord offers a middle range. And one specific technique making use of that is to stagger the onsets of the notes, so they can be heard both serially and in sustain. And in more dissonant cases this is especially helpful, both re the legibility of individual notes, and softening the harshness of dissonance. The theme here is a kind of having it both ways at once. This can of course be done in a way on the organ, but the attack/sustain balance is very different, and it's my belief that this matters a lot to the listener and the composer.

So i'm highlighting one option, one "advantage" the harpsichord (etc) has over the organ, and how it's especially helpful re dissonance. But there are many dis/advantages to both instruments, and we obviously agree that transcription translation between them is a welcome thing, and that it's fine and HIP to make appropriate changes to the score, etc. Changes made due to "trickiness" -- which i subjectively weigh as greater in one direction. If you disagree, and feel that both are about the same, or that organ->harpsichord is instead the trickier direction overall, i would accept that with interest and listen with fresh ears. 

Generally the different parts are easy to hear on the organ even when dissonant and attacked simultaneously, while this may be more difficult on the harpsichord. So I think the arpeggio approach on the harpsichord in the first hand serves to facilitate the audibility of the individual parts. And to clarify dissonances rather than to soften them. So you may to advantage play the same pieces on organ or harpsichord, provided you adapt your style to the instrument. HansJörg Albrecht´s Partitas are on their way to me, I am rather curious as to what kind of effects he has chosen to use.

[prémont]

I'm interested in hearing Bach organ (be the playing style HIP, not, grey, undefined, all of the above ) with very simple registrations, such as you describe above. I mean, on pieces that aren't usually played that way, like the intros-and-fugues.

Well, I wrote that I think the organ triosonatas and the harpsichord partitas on organ should be played with simple registrations. The great organ preludes and fugues should of course be played with the full use of the organ, and I do not know any recordings of these works using simple registrations.

[prémont]

Ok, further noob questions about the Bach organ as instrument, this time re "touch sensitive".

I've read about how the speed at which a key is depressed can change how a pipe speaks. And i'm sure i've heard the difference here and there...without realizing that's what was happening. So i could use help getting a better understanding:

   
• How widespread is this effect: How common is it for organs and stops have a clearly noticeable difference? I would assume it's only significant with simple registration and particular stops. Or is it a technique at use throughout baroque organ playing?
• What are the bounds on a Bach-HIP expressive use of this effect? Can it vary note-by-note, and by degrees, analogous to dynamics on a piano? Or is it more "terraced": a similar touch used for an entire phrase/voice?
• Is it even possible to use a variety of touches when playing quickly, as one can on the piano? Here i'm speculating about what the mechanisms allow, music geek meets physics geek -- which of course means i could be completely wrong... It partly depends on how much more slowly the key needs to be pressed to make a difference, which i also don't know. (I've never played on a tracker organ.)

   

I do not think the speed of the depression of the key has got any important application in baroque organ music, and in practice my impression is, that it does not make much difference. My organ teacher (a Bach specialist) taught me to adjust my speed and force to the properties - particularly the resistance -  of the tracker action, which may be very different (heavy - light) on different manuals even on the same organ, in order to achieve a homogeneous attack. The articulation is a question of how long time the key is depressed.

[Geo Dude]

Well, I wrote that I think the organ triosonatas and the harpsichord partitas on organ should be played with simple registrations. The great organ preludes and fugues should of course be played with the full use of the organ, and I do not know any recordings of these works using simple registrations.

Speaking of the trio sonatas, any recommendations on trio sonata recordings?  I have the Lippincott recording and would like something to supplement it with.

[jlaurson]

Speaking of the trio sonatas, any recommendations on trio sonata recordings?  I have the Lippincott recording and would like something to supplement it with.

Holm Vogel (Capriccio). (Only four of them, but very well done.)

My over all favorite probably: Andre Isoir (Calliope)

John Butt (alternative pressing, alternative 2) (HM) I remember liking, but haven't heard in a while.

But you can get many of the bits from complete sets individually. Koopman (Altes Werk), Koopman (Archiv), Alain (Naefels, Erato) & Alain (Saint-Donat, Erato)  (although I am not sure if one of those recordings is not yet still different from those in her integrals), Herrick, Preston, Bowyers certainly..., Johannsen (Haenssler Ed.), Daniel Chorzempa (Philips)...

Wouldn't mind hearing Ghielmi in these... but haven't gotten my hands or ears on it.

[Mandryka]

Speaking of the trio sonatas, any recommendations on trio sonata recordings?  I have the Lippincott recording and would like something to supplement it with.

Christa Rakich+friends. Also maybe  Power Biggs and Kei Koito. And Rare Fruit.

I'm looking for a sense of interaction between the voices, a range of characher (not just  perkiness), and some feeling of the difficulty, it's pretty astonishing that one person can play them.

[Geo Dude]

Anyone have thoughts on Alain III v.s. Ritchie v.s. Weinberger?  If it helps, the two sets I currently own are Foccroulle and Vernet.

[jlaurson]

Anyone have thoughts on Alain III v.s. Ritchie v.s. Weinberger?  If it helps, the two sets I currently own are Foccroulle and Vernet.

Don't know Ritchie. Weinberger if you like your Bach professorial. Some pieces are quite well done, but too much of it is, frankly, boring. I cherish its completeness, but it's not among even my top 10 of cycles. Alain III, however, decidedly is. But perhaps you could go non-French, for your third set. Weinberger is certainly that... but Koopman would be, too. "Rubsam I" unfortunately hard to find... Bowyers is very much not French, also.