BaL 20.10.18 - Bach: Keyboard concertos - BWV.1052-58

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Is it likely that Bach really preferred one instrument to a part in these concertos? If the violin concertos demand more than one violin I, II and viola, presumably these were pretty much on tap is his standard band? (But do they? Has anyone recorded them one inst per part?) Or is this not comparing like with like, making too big a jump in time or place of performance?

I would say that it's not so much a matter of "Bach's preference(s)" (without specific evidence to back this up, anyone can make any claims they like here ) as research into the different performing forces available to him as he composed the individual works in question. If at Köthen, (if, indeed, that is where he wrote the Violin Concertos), he had a larger ensemble of instrumentalists available to him, then it's quite conceivable that he wrote with that larger timbre - not merely "in mind" but "in practice": he composed knowing that that particular ensemble was going to play the works - and at the end of the week that the work was written. Similarly, he wrote and arranged his later ensemble works with the particular players and instruments immediately available to him at Cafe Zimmermann. Whether he thought "Oh, I so wish we had my bigger/Köthen band here" - or, for that matter, "What a pity I didn't have these players all those years ago in Köthen" - is fun speculation.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I would say that it's not so much a matter of "Bach's preference(s)" (without specific evidence to back this up, anyone can make any claims they like here ) as research into the different performing forces available to him as he composed the individual works in question. If at Köthen, (if, indeed, that is where he wrote the Violin Concertos), he had a larger ensemble of instrumentalists available to him, then it's quite conceivable that he wrote with that larger timbre - not merely "in mind" but "in practice": he composed knowing that that particular ensemble was going to play the works - and at the end of the week that the work was written. Similarly, he wrote and arranged his later ensemble works with the particular players and instruments immediately available to him at Cafe Zimmermann. Whether he thought "Oh, I so wish we had my bigger/Köthen band here" - or, for that matter, "What a pity I didn't have these players all those years ago in Köthen" - is fun speculation.

fhg: thanks for that. Fair enough, but the point was made that at Cafe Zimmerman there was a big harpsichord with a 16' stop like the one Staier uses with his larger band. This sounded very good to me (with the reservation as per previous) as well as to our reviewer. I was just questioning if 1 inst. per part was becoming too easy/ automatic an assumption for authenticists.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

fhg: thanks for that. Fair enough, but the point was made that at Cafe Zimmerman there was a big harpsichord with a 16' stop like the one Staier uses with his larger band. This sounded very good to me (with the reservation as per previous) as well as to our reviewer. I was just questioning if 1 inst. per part was becoming too easy/ automatic an assumption for authenticists.

I agree with your reaction to the Staier - and I should have made clear that these Harpsichord Concertos are not works I know at all well. Manze and Egarr, though, are first-class Musical intellects, and I don't think that they would plump for an idea "automatically" - only after careful consideration of the available evidence and much practical experience. This doesn't mean that they might have got it wrong, of course, but their record of Bach recordings does (for me) suggest that their findings deserve to be heard with at least respect, and very probably with great enjoyment.

[ardcarp]

This was a sort of opposite of a DON BAL. The focus was almost entirely on ruling out piano versions, and having done that, on balance between harpsichord and string band. Odd that he chose to play those two Russian pianists where the piaono was heavily in the foreground. I would have liked a little more discussion on musical issues. He mentioned different performance sppeds but that didn't seem to figure in his preferences. I do agree with his comment, near the end, that Egarr has a tendency towards excessively nuanced playing, which could become annoying on repeated hearing.

I must take issue with a statement that Bach never played a piano. This, from Christoph Wolff’s "Johann Sebastian Bach: The Learned Musician" -

One of Silbermann’s pianofortes was seen and played by the late Capellmeister, Mr. Joh. Sebastian Bach. He praised, indeed, admired, its tone; but he complained that it was too weak in the high register and too hard to play. This was taken greatly amiss by Mr. Silbermann, who could not bear to have any fault found in his handiworks. He was therefore angry at Mr. Bach for a long time. And yet his conscience told him that Mr. Bach was not wrong. He therefore decided—greatly to his credit, be it said—not to deliver any more of the instruments, but instead to think harder about how to eliminate the faults Mr. J.S. Bach had observed.



Mention of Silbermann, who was also a renowned organ builder, reminds me that no mention was made in today's Review about historic tuning systems in the harpsichord versions. (It was Silbermann to whom Bach said 'sharpen the thirds'...by which he meant widen the major thirds...in an attempt to get his klaviers wohltemperierte.)

I am surprised we heard nothing of Koopman or (as mentioned above) Pinnock.

[doversoul1]

I think this was a good BaL for the listeners who enjoy listening to Bach’s music but have no higher than a medium level of musical knowledge. I found the points he considered were interesting and the talk on the whole easy to follow.

ardcarp
I think the reviewer was referring to the concert grand which is surely a very different thing from the
fortepiano in this context?

[HighlandDougie]

I think this was a good BaL for the listeners who enjoy listening to Bach’s music but have no higher than a medium level of musical knowledge. I found the points he considered were interesting and the talk on the whole easy to follow.

Well, that goes into my list of great de haut en bas comments of our time! But DS1, you are right, it was both interesting and easy to follow for someone whose knowledge of the finer points of JS Bach and the keyboard is sub-zero. As posted earlier, I have the Staier which I much enjoy, although I was greatly taken with Bob von Asperen.

[Bryn]

ardcarp
I think the reviewer was referring to the concert grand which is surely a very different thing from the fortepiano in this context?

That is also how I heard it. Re. the tuning issue, even the Egarr dates from before the Bradley Lahman interpretation of Bach's 48, Book One squiggles which he (Egarr) took up.

[DracoM]

Yes, a good BAL. Sounded balanced, unhysterical, informative.

[doversoul1]

Well, that goes into my list of great de haut en bas comments of our time! But DS1, you are right, it was both interesting and easy to follow for someone whose knowledge of the finer points of JS Bach and the keyboard is sub-zero. As posted earlier, I have the Staier which I much enjoy, although I was greatly taken with Bob von Asperen.

I don’t see why describing myself as less than expert at the subject can be called de haut en bas. Besides I assume the original idea of BaL was (and still is I guess) to choose one recording to start building a collection and not compare and contrast available recordings in order to add yet one more. Still, it seems you enjoyed some of the programme which is, I think, all that matters.

[ardcarp]

I think the review would have been more straightforward had Mr Lowther said that he was going to consider harpsichord versions only. His short shrift of the pianists misses a large element of interpretations of these keyboard concertos. At the point where he said [words to the effect of] "Well we all know Bach's work is famously adaptable" would have been a good moment to nail his colours to the mast. Maybe a future BAL could give the likes of Hewitt, Schiff and Tharaud a fair hearing.

[Richard Barrett]

(without specific evidence to back this up, anyone can make any claims they like here )

The evidence seems to be that, where performing parts exist for Bach's instrumental ensemble music (including the "orchestra" used in his cantatas) there is almost never more than one copy of each string part, and this applies to music performed in Mühlhausen, Weimar and Köthen. I'm taking this from a 1991 article by Joshua Rifkin, who goes further to explain that where duplicate parts do exist this by no means indicates that multiple parts were used in performances, and cites the A major harpsichord concerto BWV1055 as a work whose complete performing materials are believed to have survived - a score and a single set of parts.

[ardcarp]

Two string players can...and always do play from one part! And Rifkin is a well known OVPP fanatic...I mean, take this: "who [Rifkind] goes further to explain that where duplicate parts do exist this by no means indicates that multiple parts were used in performances". Er.....

[Richard Barrett]

Two string players can...and always do play from one part! And Rifkin is a well known OVPP fanatic...I mean, take this: "who [Rifkind] goes further to explain that where duplicate parts do exist this by no means indicates that multiple parts were used in performances". Er.....

Two string players of course do play from one part now (in orchestral music anyway, but not, for example, in a string quartet, and there's no reason to think of Bach's ensemble music as being more closely related to the former than to the latter) and unfortunately the article I was citing doesn't give reasons why Rifkin thinks they didn't at the time... however he does say, incontrovertibly I think, that even if they did this "places a decidedly modest limit on the size of the ensembles that used them." Rifkin is far from a "fanatic", he's just a scholar who tries to argue from the available evidence rather than from "but surely it must have been like this..." which is the basic tenor of most arguments against OVPP in Bach.

[HighlandDougie]

I don’t see why describing myself as less than expert at the subject can be called de haut en bas. Besides I assume the original idea of BaL was (and still is I guess) to choose one recording to start building a collection and not compare and contrast available recordings in order to add yet one more. Still, it seems you enjoyed some of the programme which is, I think, all that matters.

Deepest apologies! I rather misread your post in that I didn’t think that you were referring to yourself as among those with lesser knowledge of the finer points of the music. Is there an emoticon for blushing with shame? And, yes, the main point is surely to recommend the best place from which to start with a particular work.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

His short shrift of the pianists misses a large element of interpretations of these keyboard concertos ... Maybe a future BAL could give the likes of Hewitt, Schiff and Tharaud a fair hearing.

I didn't sense this at all, ardy - he started with Perahia, spoke very favourably indeed about Lifschitz (much more favourably than Lifschitz himeself!) and made clear why he disliked Schiff and Hewett - they were given a much longer shrift than was Rousset; and Pinnock and Koopman, as you say, remained shriftless. I thought it was a very "fair hearing" as far as the "Piano and/or Harpsichord" question was concerned (and in most other respects, too).