Bach on the piano

[Antoine Marchand]

In a similar way I wonder if you overestimate the role of the clavichord, which exclusively enjoyed "private" use and was unsuited for recitals and chamber music making.

I tend to think that the clavichord was highly appreciated in the Bach circle. But I don't have too many proofs to offer at the moment. Only  things like my own sensation of comfort when I listen to some of those pieces, for instance, from the Notenbüchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach played on clavichord or when I read about the love of CPE Bach for the instrument. In short, I feel that the clavichord was important in the domestic musical life of Bach's family and not merely an instrument for practice.

[PaulSC]

I tend to think that the clavichord was highly appreciated in the Bach circle. But I don't have too many proofs to offer at the moment. Only  things like my own sensation of comfort when I listen to some of those pieces, for instance, from the Notenbüchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach played on clavichord or when I read about the love of CPE Bach for the instrument. In short, I feel that the clavichord was important in the domestic musical life of Bach's family and not merely an instrument for practice.

Besides, everyone knows that Bach preferred to practice on a spinster:

Johann Bach wrote a great many musical compositions and had a large number of children. In between he practiced on an old spinster which he kept in his attic. Bach died from 1750 to the present. Bach was the most famous composer in the world, and so was Handel. Handel was half German, half Italian and half English. He was very large. Beethoven wrote music even though he was deaf. He was so deaf he wrote loud music. He took long walks in the forest even when everyone was calling for him. Beethoven expired in 1827 and later died for this. The French Revolution was accomplished before it happened and catapulted into Napoleon. Napoleon wanted an heir to inherit his power, but since Josephine was a baroness, she couldn't have any children.

[prémont]

I tend to think that the clavichord was highly appreciated in the Bach circle........ In short, I feel that the clavichord was important in the domestic musical life of Bach's family and not merely an instrument for practice.

I have never questioned this. Above I wrote "private use" meaning domestic use - implying some degree of intimacy. But the intimacy of the clavichord can not be "transcribed" to our modern piano in large concert-halls, and I just feel, that the clavichord is abused as an excuse for the introduction of all kinds of dynamic variations in playing Bach on piano, even if the piece in question definitely is a harpsichord work or an organ work (e.g. BWV 535), and we know that these variations could not be realised on a harpsichord or an organ.

[prémont]

But you don't like Bach on piano!!! 

It would be more appropiate to say, that I do not like the way most pianists play Bach on piano.

[prémont]

If we take a highly dynamically and tonally  nuanced performance of a Baroque piece, does that necessarily bring with it incoherence ? Take, for example,Cortot's performance of the first movement cadenza of Brandenburg 5, which starts at 6,22 here:

Cortot´s cadenza here illustrates my point rather well. There is no inner logic, no baroque grandeur. All we get are some scattered momentary impulses. IMO the piece falls to pieces when played in this way.

[Antoine Marchand]

I have never questioned this.

I never said you questioned this. I simply said that, I feel, the clavichord was a domestic instrument highly esteemed by Bach and his circle. Just a matter of degree if you want.

Additionally, I think pianists don't need to turn to the humble clavichord to justify their decisions. That would be too much HIP.     

[Antoine Marchand]

It would be more appropiate to say, that I do not like the way most pianists play Bach on piano.

I think approximately the opposite: the piano is an instrument naturally unsuitable for Bach music and just a few interpreters get to surpass this radical inadequation. In short, the problem is more the instrument itself than the performers.

[kishnevi]

In a similar way I wonder if you overestimate the role of the clavichord, which exclusively enjoyed "private" use and was unsuited for recitals and chamber music making.

Very true. Once, many years ago, when I was in college, I attended a clavichord recital sponsored by my college's music department.  It was in the Methodist church usually used for music programs at that time.  I sat perhaps two or three rows back--a rather small audience, even by the music department's standards--and could barely hear the instrument.

[DavidRoss]

the piano is an instrument naturally unsuitable for Bach music

[Antoine Marchand]

Maybe I have been spending too many hours on this book the last days: 



AMAZON

[Mandryka]

Cortot´s cadenza here illustrates my point rather well. There is no inner logic, no baroque grandeur. All we get are some scattered momentary impulses[. IMO the piece falls to pieces when played in this way.

Let me see if I've understood you right.


Contrast Cortot's performance decisions with Leonhardt's here:

http://www.youtube.com/v/VxzY3tFTz9k



Leonhardt plays  the music with great rhythmic flexibility.  Cortot plays  the same music with great dynamic flexibility.

Cortot's decision is momentary because . . . it isn't grounded in facts about Baroque performance practice? Is that right? If not, why is one momentary and the other not?

I'm thinking of buying this. Do you recommend it?

[prémont]

I think approximately the opposite: the piano is an instrument naturally unsuitable for Bach music and just a few interpreters get to surpass this radical inadequation. In short, the problem is more the instrument itself than the performers.

I agree so far that I find the piano relatively unsuited for Bach´s music. Though I think the principal problem is on the part of the performers, who choose a relatively unsuited instrument for Bach´s music - and of course they do so because they want to add romantic flavour.

[prémont]

I think pianists don't need to turn to the humble clavichord to justify their decisions.

So you think every artistic decision is justified per se?

[prémont]

Maybe I have been spending too many hours on this book the last days: 

AMAZON

You can not spend too many hours on this exellent book.

[prémont]

Leonhardt plays  the music with great rhythmic flexibility.  Cortot plays  the same music with great dynamic flexibility.

Cortot's decision is momentary because . . . it isn't grounded in facts about Baroque performance practice? Is that right? If not, why is one momentary and the other not?

Yes. Rhythmic flexibility is part of the stylus phantasticus, which this cadenza leans on. Dynamic flexibility of the Cortot kind has no historically justified place in this music.

I'm thinking of buying this. Do you recommend it?

Yes, I had great interest in reading it. It is a bit technical and deals with balance, tempo, dynamics, articulation et.c. and how different performers applied these concepts to the music. Unfortunately it only includes the earliest generation of HIP performers and only the first years of their activity.

[Mandryka]

So the convention of allowing rhythmic but not dynamic flexibility in this type of music has origins which antedate Bach himself and which flourish today.

Cortot is part of a different tradition, one which allows dynamic variation to provide dramatic contrasts when the music repeats  phrases, like at the start of the cadenza.

Both are conventions.

But because Cortot's allegiances are alien to the practices current at the time of the composition of the score, Cortot's way with the music is incoherent.

Of course that because is the problem.

Take an example from a different genre of performance art: in Beyreuth Kupfer used lasers. I don't believe that fact made his Ring incoherent, even though it was part of a performance tradition which is alien to anything Wagner would have known about.

[DavidRoss]

Maybe I have been spending too many hours on this book the last days: 
AMAZON

Looks interesting, but at $23.72 for the Kindle version I won't be following up the suggestion.

OTOH, this isn't even available on Kindle:

[prémont]

Cortot is part of a different tradition, one which allows dynamic variation to provide dramatic contrasts when the music repeats  phrases, like at the start of the cadenza.

Sorry, I do not hear drama, only trivialization.

Both are conventions.

But because Cortot's allegiances are alien to the practices current at the time of the composition of the score, Cortot's way with the music is incoherent.

Of course that because is the problem.

I put toñito this question above :

So you think every artistic decision is justified per se? and I am very curious to se his answer.

I would like to put the same question to you.

Take an example from a different genre of performance art: in Beyreuth Kupfer used lasers. I don't believe that fact made his Ring incoherent, even though it was part of a performance tradition which is alien to anything Wagner would have known about.

This is not a suitable example, - f.i. we nowadays perform Monteverdi´s operas with electric illumination instead of candlelight, and I see no anachronism in that. It does not change the performance in a radical way.

But if the action of the opera (Monteverdi, Wagner or whatever) is transferred to our time using modern dresses. furniture and so on, I think this is going too far. Ideally every opera also ought to be performed in the original language even if it is out of use, but the problem is, that very few of the listeners of to day would understand it. Maybe the problem with old music is of a similar kind - that many listeners do not understand it, if it isn´t played with a romantic "accent".

The HIP and PI movement has rediscovered many of the performance practice traditions of the past. It does not pretend to perform early music exactly as it was performed at the composers age. This would a priori be impossible as a certain degree of artistic freedom certainly was allowed even then, but romantic dynamic variations are with certainty alien to baroque harpsichord- and organ music, and this is what I feel when I hear it, and the reason why I do not like this way of playing.

I am not in principle opposed to Bach playing on piano, and expect to receive Ivo Janssen´s integral soon. His AoF, which I know, seems relative sober, so I am eager to hear the rest.

[Antoine Marchand]

I put toñito this question above :

So you think every artistic decision is justified per se? and I am very curious to se his answer.

I thought this was just a "rhetorical" question (not in the sense that Bruce Haynes uses "Rhetoric", of course) because I thought you already knew some of my musical preferences. I can't elaborate at this moment, but for me the limit for artistic decisions is traced by the concepts of "interpretation" and "creation". Interpretation is limited by the object which is interpreted; creation is absolute and doesn't recognize any limit.

[Mandryka]

I put toñito this question above :

So you think every artistic decision is justified per se? and I am very curious to se his answer.

I would like to put the same question to you.

Some decisions aren't so good, but I tend not to involve historical correctness to form my conclusions.

Contrast the decision of Allan Curtis to play the opening of the 4th English suite quite so rigidly

http://www.youtube.com/v/4PmP3IHt5Kw

with Glenn Gould's decision to play it more flexibly

http://www.youtube.com/v/CKzLxkrlqVs

Gould's decision was better because it sounds more spontaneous. By comparison Curtis is too steadfast too heavy  and sounds over accented.

Sounding spontaneous is the basic  performance value I'm appealing to .

Yes, I had great interest in reading it. It is a bit technical and deals with balance, tempo, dynamics, articulation et.c. and how different performers applied these concepts to the music. Unfortunately it only includes the earliest generation of HIP performers and only the first years of their activity.

Yes. On harpsichord the early HIP performers are the ones I like -- Landowska, Walcha, Kirkpatrick, early Puaena, early Leonhardt.

It would be nice to have a book which would help open up the later HIP harpsichordists to me.