| Author |
Subject |
Tim
Janof
Global
user
(6/12/00 10:26:36 am)
Reply |
The
Infinity of Bach
I recently listened to Bach's
Chaconne for solo violin. It's pieces like this that make me
question James Nicholas' thesis (author of "It says 'Suite,' not
'Sweat.'") that we try too hard to find meaning in Bach's music,
that we just need to play the Suites as if they are the Brandenburg
Concerti (as if they have little meaning!). No, not everything Bach
wrote was intended to be profoundly poetic, but, when he is being
poetic (in my view), I for one am overwhelmed by the "Infinity of
Bach."
Tim Janof (Finholt)
Edited by Tim
Janof at: 6/12/00 10:26:36 am
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Nicholas
Anderson
Local
user
(6/12/00 12:46:22 pm)
Reply |
Couldn't agree more
It's truly amazing how many people,
even musicians, fail to see the depth of Bach, or to have any idea
of how to bring it out interpretively. You're absolutely right about
the profundity, and it needs to be expounded upon at some point. Of
course, Casals helped greatly to steer things in that direction, and
his work could be carried further.
It's ironic what you said
about the Brandenburg thing, and I have a related anecdote. Recently
I was giving a recital with a VERY prominent, established pianist
here in NY whom I won't name, and we were to do the G minor Gamba
Sonata. He just wanted to go racing through it, without shaping
phrases, or making any climactic moments or arrivals, highs and
lows, lyricism, or anything - and he was very insistent that I was
trying to read way too much musical depth into it. He said, "It's
just like the third Brandenburg" - and proceeded to sing a bit of
THAT in a rushed and trivialized way. (Of course, I think the
Brandenburgs are profound too! Though, contrary to what he was
saying, there are great differences between those and the Gamba
Sonatas.) After just one rehearsal, I suggested that we drop that
piece and have me do a Bach solo cello suite instead, which
fortunately he agreed to. The funniest thing about it was that many
people who heard that I was playing with him were very impressed;
and I thought, if only they knew how superficial he really is - to
put it "euphemistically!" (With all due respect.)
By
contrast, the other day I happened to see a film on PBS called "The
Art of Piano," and they had part of an old video from 1960 of Glenn
Gould playing the Bach D Minor Piano Concerto with the NY
Philharmonic and Leonard Bernstein - in black and white, of course,
and there was Laszlo Varga right in front as principal cellist! Talk
about a poetic interpretation - it was just astonishing how Gould
controlled and shaped every nuance of the phrasing and tone color
through his physical approach to the instrument, with the deepest
kind of caring and commitment to the inner message, on both the
large and detailed levels - and I thought that this is the kind of
ARTISTIC playing which one almost never hears any more.
After
performing all six of the solo cello suites myself for many years,
I've become convinced that in them, Bach, whether consciously or
unconsciouly, was making use of and honoring certain very specific
underlying structural principles that can be found in all CONSUMMATE
art, and which can be articulated and used as as an interpretive
guide - not to establish one correct interpretation, but to clarify,
illuminate and open up horizons and possibilities of interpretation.
And again, of a kind of interpretive depth that seems to be mostly
missing today - but which I think people really want, underneath it
all. I find it extraordinary that more has not been written about
this by others, and that no book exists about it. I've read
everything out there, and nothing touches on the matters to which
I'm referring. In any case, I have developed a lot of far-reaching
ideas about this which I hope to communicate some day.
By the
way, it was a pleasure to meet you, albeit briefly, at the recent
Cello Congress.
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dennisw
Global user
(6/12/00 8:02:11 pm)
Reply |
Bach =
Infinity
I think you can find the depth of
the Bach
suites without getting carried away by it
all.
Perhaps that is what Mr. Nicholas was
referring to.
If you
have a feel for the music, then the
interpretations will be, for
the most part,
self-evident.
Another point is this: the
suites vary in
depth, usually in direct proportion to
their
harmonic complexity. The minor keys are more
complex
than the major keys, and as a result
they have more color and
nuance. In Bach,
the harmonic rhythm is the basis for the
structure and the expression.
The G major suite, for
example is
very simple harmonically. There isn't all
that
much "depth" to be mined. It's pretty
much a matter of
what-you-see-is-what-you-get.
I think its a waste of time to get
caught up
in mining the depths of this suite. There just
isn't
that much to get. And yet, there is a
real beauty in its utter
simplicity.
There certainly isn't anything shallow
about
the c minor suite, and there are lots and lots
of
opportunities for interpretive freedom, but
I wouldn't get lost
in the quest for the perfect
interpretation, either. In fact, the
one thing
that kills this suite for me is when the
cellist
takes it too seriously. I will say, however that
the c
minor sarabande does have an unusual
enigmatic quality, directly
tied to its harmonic
movement, that is not easily communicated to
the
listener.
For me, the beauty of the Casals recordings
lies in
the rhythmic vitality he brings to each and
every
movement, really playing them as a dance. That
tends to
explain what these suites are really about:
a prelude followed by
5 dances.
|
Tim
Janof
Global
user
(7/2/00 8:39:31 pm)
Reply |
James
Nicholas asked me to post this.
My thanks to dennisw for coming to
my defense in such a gentlemanly way; he did an admirable
job.
Despite the lighthearted tone of my Bach commentary, I
would be the last to deny that there are profound emotions embedded
within the suites. You will note that at UCONN, I urged the audience
to feel free to laugh if they heard something droll, and to sigh if
something moved them. Baroque music is all about nothing if not
"Affect", or emotional content. My point really had to do with
style; the point being that the cello suites are really no different
in style than all of Bach's other instrumental music of the Coethen
period (and later); therefore, the key to interpreting the latter
will give you the key to interpreting the former.
CPE
Bach states that a performer's job is to move the listener, and that
the performer cannot achieve this unless he himself is moved. (Essay
on the True Way of Playing the Keyboard: Chapter 3: Performance,
section 13). He even suggests that the performer's facial expression
can clarify the composer's intentions with regard to emotional
content. However, he does also state in the same paragraph that "he
(the performer) must make certain that he assumes the emotion which
the composer intended in writing it". When I perform the C minor
suite, among my "secret Affects" are: stern, almost fearful majesty
(Prelude), resignment and sweet regret (Allemande), sorrow beyond
demonstrable expression (Sarabande), and the loneliness of dancing
alone (Gigue). This is not a shallow set of emotions. Yet I caution
the interpreter that it's not a good idea to formulate one's
interpretation of Bach based solely on the rhythms and pitches, or
especially the memory of other people's recorded performances,
without taking into account the other aspects of Bach's musical
language which are not always obvious or expressed by his notation.
Among the first and most important of these are tempo and the tempo
conventions inherent in a genre piece such as a "French" overture
(Suite No. 5), a Menuet, a Bourree, or a Sarabande (which is
certainly not a slow movement in the sense of a Classical adagio). A
second one is rhythmic conventions, notably the overdotting of
dotted notes as a matter of course, and the unequal treatment of
pairs of notes with repect to both duration and emphasis. Neither of
these is explicitly expressed by Bach's notation; for the
eighteenth-century musician, it didn't need to be, and in fact it
couldn't be. An inherent problem for the twentieth- and
twenty-first-century musician is that Bach's notation looks the same
as ours; it doesn't necessarily express the same sound, however
(much as the English word "hand" and the German word "Hand" are
pronounced very differently).
I myself have no doubt that
there are profundities even in Bach's lighter music; joy can
certainly be profound, and so can a carefree quality. It's always
possible, however, to find different kinds of profundities, some of
them intended and some of them not intended. It's therefore worth
considering whether or not we are really expressing "the emotion
which the composer intended" if we play a Sarabande at half speed,
or fail to sharpen the dotted rhythms in the Overture (prelude) of
the fifth suite (especially if we also fail to heed the "alla-breve"
sign in the beginning), or give equal weight to both the first and
the second beats in a Gavotte or Bourree.
The better one
learns a language, the easier it is to discover the meaning of any
text. This is why I exhort all my students and my colleagues to be
open to any and all information available, and to always be prepared
to discard previously-held opinions.
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