David,
Nobody owns Bach; not you, not Beatrice Rana, not Gould, Busoni, Leonhardt,
Tovey... no one. Bach belongs to everyone who enjoys the music. We cannot
dictate others' innocent enjoyment. There is no right or wrong way to play
or enjoy Bach. Bach's music is not a moral imperative, it is art. It is a
conversation. It is right to play Bach. Play it any way you can, on anything
you can. Learn it, hear it again and again. Hum it, improvise on it. Get to
grips with it in any way you can. You enjoy it one way, someone else enjoys
it another. If you don't like what you are hearing, turn off the recording,
or the radio or leave the concert hall. Harpsichordists are not locked in
battle with pianists. This is music. This is about participating in another
person's creative imagination.
Mimi
-----Original Message-----
From: Harpsichords and Related Topics <[log in to unmask]> On Behalf Of
David Pickett
Sent: 09 June 2018 21:30
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Bach on the Piano
I know I am preaching to the choir here, so do not feel obliged to respond
to this obvious vent about what is probably the bleeding obvious to you
all...
I read today of yet another recording of the Goldberg Variations on the
mighty Steinway (Beatrice Rana). I can only suppose that pianists are either
unable to master the harpsichord, or just stuck in a Gould/Busoni mindset.
Having tried for YEARS to play Bach's music on the piano, I was never able
to do so with conviction or personal satisfaction. Certain features seemed
so badly composed for the instrument -- until I discoverd harpsichords 20 or
so years ago and all fell in place. (I can enjoy Glenn Gould's recordings
from time to time, but when I hear him play works that are familiar to me in
harpsichord guise I am unable to recognise them as the same pieces!)
Clearly the "battle" of persuading musicians to play baroque keyboard music
on appropriate instruments is not won. At first the "traditionalists" had a
point in that the results were often unmusical, and in many cases they still
are, though the pendulum has swung from sewing machine to unrhythmical.
Today it seems that one is either a player of a Steinway /Bösendorfer or an
"early keyboardist". Why are these two so incompatible? Why must a player be
considered committed to one and not the other?
(Aside: in his edition of the 48, e.g. his notes to the B minor P&F of Book
I, Tovey refers approvingly to the clavichord; was he the first modern
pianist to do this?)
How to convince the seemingly invincibly ignorant, who are often nice
people, and who can play the heck out of Liszt and Brahms, but not enter
into the spirit of Froberger or the Couperins, and who seemingly imagine
that Bach would have wasted hours of his life composing for the wretched
instruments that they take harpsichords and clavichords to be?
Collectively it seems we are doing something wrong in not being able to win
this "battle".
David
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Note: opinions expressed on HPSCHD-L are those of the individual con-
tributors and not necessarily those of the list owners nor of the Uni-
versity of Iowa. For a brief summary of list commands, send mail to
[log in to unmask] saying HELP .
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