Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier

[aukhawk]

One think that  seems to mark Rubsam out is that there's not a moment, not a bar, of harmonic playing: the voices are independent everywhere.

To my ears, there's a kind of Jackson Pollock effect.  Not unpleasant, but you have to work at it a bit to extract the sense of it all.

[Baron Scarpia]

Looking on Amazon, I see only MP3 downloads, no physical media. Is this so?

[Mandryka]

Looking on Amazon, I see only MP3 downloads, no physical media. Is this so?

Yes, best to get the FLAC direct from Rubsam's website.

[Baron Scarpia]

Yes, best to get the FLAC direct from Rubsam's website.

...which is where?

[Marc]

...which is where?

https://www.wolfgangrubsam.com

https://www.wolfgangrubsam.com/wtc-book-1
https://www.wolfgangrubsam.com/wtc-book-2

[Baron Scarpia]

https://www.wolfgangrubsam.com

https://www.wolfgangrubsam.com/wtc-book-1
https://www.wolfgangrubsam.com/wtc-book-2

Samples do sound interesting, but pricey, and I find the web site confusing. It mentions MP3 or FLAC available, but you click on download and it sends you to PayPal before you are given any choice of FLAC vs MP3.

[zamyrabyrd]

Listened to the samples.
Sure, anyone who likes a slow, staggering and disjointed approach in which musical lines are deconstructed, will have a field day.  Q

Yikes, I have to clean out my ears and listen to Glenn Gould!

[Mandryka]

Samples do sound interesting, but pricey, and I find the web site confusing. It mentions MP3 or FLAC available, but you click on download and it sends you to PayPal before you are given any choice of FLAC vs MP3.

You go to paypal, you pay and then you get a choice of downloading mp3 or FLAC -- same price for the two.

[amw]

One think that  seems to mark Rubsam out is that there's not a moment, not a bar, of harmonic playing: the voices are independent everywhere.

I'm not sure how different the lautenwerk is from the actual baroque lute, but in lute playing pretty much everything is arpeggiated just because that's how the instrument works. The instrument he's posing with has a keyboard which is obviously a significant difference from playing a stringed instrument, but the action mechanism may be responsible for some of the staggered voices, I wouldn't know though.

Mostly it seems kind of slow to me, although on a nice instrument, but I also liked Dantone, so take my opinion for whatever that's worth

[The One]

https://www.wolfgangrubsam.com

https://www.wolfgangrubsam.com/wtc-book-1
https://www.wolfgangrubsam.com/wtc-book-2

#NotMyWellTemperedClavier

[San Antone]

I'm not sure how different the lautenwerk is from the actual baroque lute, but in lute playing pretty much everything is arpeggiated just because that's how the instrument works. The instrument he's posing with has a keyboard which is obviously a significant difference from playing a stringed instrument, but the action mechanism may be responsible for some of the staggered voices, I wouldn't know though.

Mostly it seems kind of slow to me, although on a nice instrument, but I also liked Dantone, so take my opinion for whatever that's worth

Keith Hill contributed a commentary on the Lautenwerk he built for Rubsam in which he talks about the specific mechanical aspects of the various instruments he's built and how they impact on the performance here.



I immediately fell in love with these recordings.  However, since a response to music is subjective it is not really surprising others have expressed an opposite reaction; nevertheless it has been a very interesting discussion.

[Mandryka]

Mostly it seems kind of slow to me

The slowness is part of what gives it its pastoral feel. The tempo of sheep grazing. The pulse seems natual to me, like a heart beat, though not the heart beat of someone excited - the heartbeat of someone daydreaming of fields, rolling hills, grazing sheep . . . no wolf in sight.

It would be good if someone would run a section through a programme to speed it up without altering pitch and post the file here, just to see the effects of the tempo more clearly. No one has ever played Bach keyboard like this before, I'm sure of it, and it just may be that cantabile + horizontal demands these tempos. That's to say, too much expressive detail gets lost in the flurry if it's faster. The tempos seem singable, for all he's Italian you couldn't sing WTC like Dantone plays it.

(note to self: contrast effect of slow tempos in L'Acheron's Gibbons.)

Try and copy a bit of WR on your piano, amw, and play it a bit faster and see what you think.

Also interesting, I just mention it randomly, is the effect of horizontal playing on articulation. You know you have two or more voices each playing with their own phrasing, sometimes the voices interact in a call and response type of way but more often not. I just mention it because I've been listening to some Leonhardt - not WTC but the Froberger on his album with Weckmann - and there the music really does respire because of the articulation, and that gives it a sort of life which Rubsam's WTC doesn't have . . . it may have a different sort of life of course - the respiration may come more from all the rubato.

Harnoncourt may have experimented with some of these ideas before Rubsam - in his second B minor mass for example. There's something to explore there.

[zamyrabyrd]

The slowness is part of what gives it its pastoral feel. The tempo of sheep grazing. The pulse seems natual to me, like a heart beat, though not the heart beat of someone excited - the heartbeat of someone daydreaming of fields, rolling hills, grazing sheep . . . no wolf in sight.

It would be good if someone would run a section through a programme to speed it up without altering pitch and post the file here, just to see the effects of the tempo more clearly. No one has ever played Bach keyboard like this before, I'm sure of it, and it just may be that cantabile + horizontal demands these tempos. That's to say, too much expressive detail gets lost in the flurry if it's faster. The tempos seem singable, for all he's Italian you couldn't sing WTC like Dantone plays it.

In Badura-Skoda's scholarly "Interpreting Bach at the Keyboard" a case is made for faster tempi for Baroque music than we have been used to over the past 200 years or so. Some proof is cited for that, a collection in England of barrels for mechanical organ from the 18th century that included pieces by Handel. (I was also gratified to read in these examplars, that trills often started on the principal note rather than the upper one, a fiat that was a hard for me to accept while I was studying, sometimes sounding horrible.)

My understanding of Bach is based on the balance between horizontal and vertical. In the recent cited examples, it is difficult to make sense of either. Bach wasn't always "pastoral", he was also fire and brimstone.

[prémont]

. no wolf in sight.

No, but wolf (Wolf) is precisely what (whom) you hear.

.. and it just may be that cantabile + horizontal demands these tempos. That's to say, too much expressive detail gets lost in the flurry

Precisely. This is an important point. In faster tempo the effect of the intended micro-desynchronization of voices diminishes, and it will sound more like mere lack of precision (sloppiness).

Also interesting, I just mention it randomly, is the effect of horizontal playing on articulation. You know you have two or more voices each playing with their own phrasing, sometimes the voices interact in a call and response type of way but more often not. I just mention it because I've been listening to some Leonhardt - not WTC but the Froberger on his album with Weckmann - and there the music really does respire because of the articulation, and that gives it a sort of life which Rubsam's WTC doesn't have . . . it may have a different sort of life of course - the respiration may come more from all the rubato.

Yes, and when the voices are played in a more individual way, the interaction between them will tend to be even more casual, and this may be experienced as if the music is less integrated. I think Rübsam's interpretations tend in that direction, but there is on the other hand so much else to enjoy because of the spontaneous air and resulting unpredictability, which he uses to maximum effect. I also like the deliberate "inner calmness" in his playing. Leonhardt's playing is on a higher level of agitation and the voices interact in a more predictable and integrated way, and the expression is on another but not necessarily higher level. I think both ways of playing work, and they supplement each other.

[Mandryka]

In Badura-Skoda's scholarly "Interpreting Bach at the Keyboard" a case is made for faster tempi for Baroque music than we have been used to over the past 200 years or so. Some proof is cited for that, a collection in England of barrels for mechanical organ from the 18th century that included pieces by Handel. (I was also gratified to read in these examplars, that trills often started on the principal note rather than the upper one, a fiat that was a hard for me to accept while I was studying, sometimes sounding horrible.)

Clearly this is a bit of a wonky argument as it stands.

. Bach wasn't always "pastoral", he was also fire and brimstone.

I've been thinking hard about what you're suggesting.

Although I don't think that "fire and brimstone" are part of WTC, I do think that the music sounds good if there are emotional contrasts: dark emotions and " redemptive' illumination.

However, having now listened more attentively to the minor key fugues in Bk 2,  I don't believe that Rubsam's pastoral excludes these contrasts.

Although Rubsam's calm, he plumbs the depths of expression in the music. He's not extrovertly thrilling, but he is psychologically, introvertly, thrilling.

Not fire and brimstone, but something much deeper than that.

Anyway, try it for yourself in those minor key fugues. Listen, for example, to the contrast in affects in the f sharp minor fugue, BWV 883, at about the half way point.

(I hope WR is reading all of this!)

[Mandryka]

Precisely. This is an important point. In faster tempo the effect of the intended micro-desynchronization of voices diminishes, and it will sound more like mere lack of precision (sloppiness).
.

I just used Audacity to speed up one track by 10%. It's not as good, Rubsam's tempo is better!

[prémont]

(I hope WR is reading all of this!)

So do I. I have told WR about this forum, and he answered me, that he had checked it and also had seen the WTC thread. He commented upon the at times "loud" opinions of the non-musicians. I think he meant, that some of the most rigorous opinions here are rather uninformed. But that was a month ago, I do not know, if he has visited the forum again.

[prémont]

Although I don't think that "fire and brimstone" are part of WTC, I do think that the music sounds good if there are emotional contrasts: dark emotions and " redemptive' illumination.

As an example I was confused by WR's soft interpretation of the c sharp minor fugue from book II. I always saw it as a vigorous gigue-type composition in contrast to the lyrical prelude. But thinking it over I came to the conclusion, that very few - if any - of the other fugues of the WTC contrast in any signiificant degree with the affect of the prelude, and WR may be right, that the c sharp minor pair isn't meant to express any contrast.

[Marc]

So do I. I have told WR about this forum, and he answered me, that he had checked it and also had seen the WTC thread. He commented upon the at times "loud" opinions of the non-musicians. I think he meant, that some of the most rigorous opinions here are rather uninformed. But that was a month ago, I do not know, if he has visited the forum again.

Most music listeners and lovers are uninformed.
At least that's my experience.

I myself am only a slightly informed non-musician, and despite the fact that I think that Wolfgang Rübsam is a very interesting loot on the tree of Bach/baroque interpreters, in general 'his' Bach is not 'mine'. My favourite recordings of him are the Philips Bach/organ ones, when tempi were faster and his approach was more 'no nonsense'.
I do realize of course, that this is not a very rigorous opinion.
My opinions about performances and recordings are getting less and less rigorous, btw. Could be age.

I'm with my family right now (Christmas Time Is Here Again 0:)), and even though I'm tempted to download some of Rübsam's recordings, I will probably decide about it in the New Year to come.

[Baron Scarpia]

After listening to a few samples, I'm tempted. It's certainly different, and something that's different and skillfully done can be really open your eyes to something new, even if it doesn't replace more conventional performances in your preference. This is certainly skillfully done and not uninformed, as I can conclude by the fact that Rubsam has a long history of producing high quality mainstream recordings of Bach over a long career. He discovered a new instrument and it led him to conceive a "new" way of playing these works.