Sounds & Fury

Bach, Gould, Dope, And Another Dose

Mark Edmundson, a university professor of English at the University of Virginia, had published in The Chronicle of Higher Education last week an interesting article titled "Can Music Save Your Life?" wherein he concluded:

My wonderful former teacher, Geoffrey Hartman, said that most reading was vague and lazy, like girl watching. Feminists gave him the bastinado for that, but he was right. Something similar is true about listening to music. Usually it's about getting your emotions packaged for you, quieting the static inside, fabricating an exciting identity ... to counteract one's commitment to a life of secure banality.

Most music listening, like most reading, is passive. It's about girl watching rather than woman wooing, which is a tougher game. Schopenhauer says that most reading is letting other people think your thoughts for you. I'd add that most music listening is about letting other people feel your feelings for you.

While I take Dr. Edmundson's point, I think he's rather missed the mark. Music listening can go far deeper than that.

A personal experience:

I've been on serious dope for a period of time but once in my life: during a one-year recovery from a particularly nasty and should-have-been-fatal motorcycle accident in the early '70s. That experience with dope was an eye-opening and consciousness-raising one which to this day remains unforgettable. The dope was administered intravenously by medical personnel for the first month or so and self-administered orally thereafter for a period of another few months. That first warm rush and the immediately ensuing feeling of transcendent wellbeing after each dose simply has no equal in ordinary life — at least not in my ordinary life.

Needless to say, I became hooked on that feeling and slipped into the habit of checking my watch repeatedly to see whether it was permissible to administer another dose without exceeding the safe limit. One day I caught myself actually doing that and it scared me straight. On the spot and cold turkey I ceased taking the stuff and depended thereafter on aspirin alone for whatever pain relief it could offer.

While it's not quite the same thing, I today, in the closing years of my life (I've passed the biblically allotted three-score-and-ten and so figure I'm now living on borrowed time), experience much that same feeling of transcendent wellbeing and when the music's over the need for "another dose" every time I listen to a Glenn Gould performance of a Bach keyboard work; the Partitas, the Goldberg, and Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier most especially. Once the CD gets going in the player with the repeat set to ALL, it requires a substantial effort of will on my part to stop it going no matter how long it's been going which at times could be an entire day without break.

I've of course attempted many times to analyze and explain this phenomenon to myself, a phenomenon I experience with no other music and performer, and of course always come up with an answer. But in the end, that answer, no matter how well-thought-out and detailed, always turns out to be woefully inadequate and no explanation at all. I know the phenomenon has something to do with Gould's unique and uncanny ability to delineate each voice in the music's dense polyphonic texture with perfect clarity as if he had a separate hand devoted to each yet maintain at all times a perfect horizontal (melodic) and vertical (harmonic) contrapuntal coherence in the gestalt and in so doing seems to be inhabiting and giving voice to the very mind of Bach himself which, in turn, seems, in this one respect, the very mind of God. No other so-called "absolute" music and no other keyboardist of my experience comes even close to being able to accomplish that in my case. But, by itself, that's no real explanation either.

Am I merely "getting [my] emotions packaged for [me], quieting the static inside [me], fabricating an exciting identity [for myself] ... to counteract [my] commitment to a life of secure banality" by "letting other people feel [my] feelings for [me]" as Dr. Edmundson suggests?

I seriously doubt it. But, then, there's always the possibility, no matter how disquieting, that I might be doing just that. If so, I'm content to let it be so — that is, as long as I can always get another dose.

NPR's "Goldberg Week": Joining The Party

This week, NPR has been celebrating the birthday of the incomparably great Johann Sebastian Bach (born, 21 March 1685) with a series of posts on its blog Deceptive Cadence devoted to commentary on Bach's so-called Goldberg Variations, an astonishing set of 30 variations for the keyboard on the ground bass of a meltingly beautiful 32-measure sarabande (Aria) which set of variations is what we've conservatively called the "without-equal crown jewel of the entire Baroque keyboard repertoire." That commentary will be capped off tomorrow, 23 March, at 12:00 PM EDT, by a live "online listening party" featuring pianist Glenn Gould's seminal 1955 recording of the Goldberg with special guests Tim page and Anne Midgette, former and present Washington Post chief classical music critics, respectively, commenting. We herewith join the party in spirit, if somewhat prematurely, by way of reprinting below our 2004 S&F entry "Gould's Goldberg: Earlier or Later?", a commentary on Gould's two historic recordings of this great work: those of 1955 and 1981. The text follows instanter and without further comment.

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Lovely Weekend Guest, a first-rate pianist and knowledgeable lover of Bach's keyboard works (she often refers to them by BWV number, for instance) spent part of her last weekend evening here in a friendly but, um, animated discussion with me of Glenn Gould's 1955 and 1981 recordings of Bach's Goldberg Variations (or BWV 988 as LWG calls it just to piss me off). On the whole, I rather prefer the earlier reading, she the later. The readings, both of them, are, of course, marvels, and display in equal measure Gould's trademark, irreproducible, and nonpareil Bach performance technique — the preternatural (horizontal) delineation of multiple contrapuntal lines while maintaining fully their interlaced (vertical) harmonic coherence; the uncanny rhythmic sense, perfectly precise but infinitely plastic; and the equally precise and plastic articulation which commentators and critics insist on referring to as détaché but which is rather a near-perfect pianistic analogue of the highly prized and near-impossible harpsichord legato — but are otherwise world's apart in spirit.

Rambunctious, LWG calls the earlier reading. Staid, I call the later, but only half mean it, using the term largely for reasons of symmetry with her rambunctious. About the only interpretive point on which we agree is that both Gould readings of this without-equal crown jewel of the entire Baroque keyboard repertoire blow away all other readings, truly excellent though some are.

I've had the recordings of both readings in my library almost since the day of their releases (both of which recordings survived the catastrophe that consumed most of the rest of my libraries several years ago), and though I listen to them often, I never really made the effort to nail down exactly why I preferred the one reading over the other. Better late than never, I decide, and so use the weekend's discussion with LWG as a spur.

Leaving aside the Aria (the ground bass of which is the unifying theme upon which the variations are built) which opens and closes the set of variations (and which I here leave aside mostly because I suspect I'm missing something important concerning it in the later reading as I simply cannot conceive a reasonable musical, aesthetic, or emotional justification for the funereal, almost structure-destroying tempo taken for it by Gould in that reading), I always vaguely imagined it was the generally slower — at times significantly slower — tempi of the later reading (i.e., slower as compared with the earlier reading) that provoked my antipathy for, even annoyance with, that reading. But I now see that's not it. Something else. And that something else is, I think, most clearly exemplified in Gould's two readings of Variation 25, dubbed "The Black Pearl" by the great harpsichordist and Bach scholar Wanda Landowska; an astonishing piece of music that enters the set of variations like some alien presence and at its departure leaves one slack-jawed with amazement and wonder.

With its frequent, expectation-subverting harmonic modulations, actual and implied, Variation 25's chromaticism is so extreme it makes the music of Tristan and Parsifal seem positively diatonic by comparison. Gould, in his liner notes for the 1955 release, refers to this variation in his typically provocative way as a "Chopinesque mood-piece," and elsewhere as a "Romantic effusion." It's neither of these, of course, but thoroughly and essentially Bachian throughout. It's simply that it seems to not belong to this set of variations, but seemingly magically still remains one with it while at the same time seeming to inhabit another world altogether.

In his earlier reading, Gould captures this another-world quality perfectly, largely by his circumspect and strategic use of rubato, an expressive device more identified with the Classical period and with Chopin and the Romantics than with Bach, but here used to brilliant effect. This variation is one of the few where the tempo of the earlier reading is taken slightly slower overall than the later (but only marginally so; 6'28" vs. 6'03"; a 6% difference in timings). The confluence of the marginally slower overall tempo and the strategic use of rubati in this earlier reading, however, make the progress of the melodic line and the movement of the astonishing harmonic shifts seem to play out on a scale cosmically slow the variation's internal pulse seemingly proceeding as do the slow wheeling of galaxies through the infinite eons of boundless space, the harmony's expectation-subverting modulations given point by the rubati and suggesting tonalities mystically strange and vastly remote.

As I said, music that leaves one slack-jawed with amazement and wonder — in the earlier reading, that is. In the later reading the rubati, while still present to some extent, are largely emasculated, the internal pulse and inflection of the melodic line and harmonic shifts spun out in deliberately and soberly considered fashion, the variation now seeming more at home with the set's other variations than in the earlier reading because more metrically and sensibly proportional to them. The expectation-subverting modulations are still there, of course, and still give this variation the feel of a vaguely alien presence within the set, but the another-world magic of the earlier reading has gone missing. Gould's deliberate and sober approach to the music bars such mysteries. One's amazement at the variation's harmonic inventiveness remains, of course, but the wonder has fled.

This stately, deliberate sobriety characterizes most (but not all) of Gould's later reading of the Goldberg; a sobriety achieved by various musical means, one of which is Gould's singling out of one of the contrapuntal voices (typically, the unifying element of the Aria's bass line) as if to say, "See? Here it is." In intent, the device is somewhat akin to that used in "Konzept" opera productions wherein the self-involved director insists on pushing his particular "vision" repeatedly in the audience's face lest they miss it. It's a device as annoying here as it is there.

The sheer audacity — the "rambunctious[ness]" — of Gould's earlier reading may be considered by some a mark against it, but for me it's that very audacity that gives revelatory life to that earlier reading, while the deliberately sober later reading largely (but, again, not entirely) eschews audacity as if to act as corrective of the implied youthful excesses of the earlier. While the later reading may achieve its end in that respect, it does so at a cost, and to my way of thinking (and hearing), the cost is simply too great.

A Conversation With An Exterminator

I got out of bed early yesterday morning (early being defined as, "before noon") in not inconsiderable pain due a bad hip and in a really pissy mood. This, I predicted instantly and with little hope of being in error, was not going to be a good day.

Limping into the kitchen, I began my daily ritual of brewing my first cuppa, a routine I ordinarily accomplish pretty much on autopilot, and let the hopper-fed, conical-burr grinder run too long thereby producing enough ground coffee for three cups instead of one; mismeasured the water first time round; and set the timer for the wrong brew time.

Yes, most decidedly not going to be a good day.

Bach was badly needed here, I determined, slipped the CD of Book I of the Well Tempered Clavier into the player (Gould, of course), and set it going.

That's the ticket all right, thought I, and almost immediately felt the pain in my hip — or, rather, the pain's edge — begin to dissipate a bit and my head and pissy mood begin to clear.

Coffee done and cupped, I then sat down at the computer to go through my morning rounds on the Web. I'd not been at it more than five minutes when came a knock at the door. Annoyed (I hadn't been expecting anyone to stop by), I called out a "Who is it?" in a not too friendly or welcoming tone. "Exterminator," came the reply.

Oh damn! What the hell is he doing here, and so early in the day? Limping to the door, I opened it and there stood a uniformed young guy in his mid-twenties or so whom I'd never seen before, equipment in hand and all pleasant smiles, who wished me a good morning, said he was sorry to bug me (bug me; get it?), but it was that time of month again and he was there to do his company's monthly apartment building preventive maintenance thing. I grunted my assent and returned to my business at the computer, the full flower of my pissy mood reestablished.

A few minutes passed. Then, from the kitchen, "Bach?"

Did I just hear right? "Excuse me?" I shot back. "Is that Bach we're listening to?" came the reply. I couldn't bloody believe it. "Yes," I said, now stopping work at the computer. "A prelude from the Well Tempered Clavier," I continued gingerly. "Which book?" "One," I replied, now definitely unable to believe this conversation. "I like Bach but I'm really more a Mozart man myself," said the exterminator.

What the hell was in that coffee I'd been drinking? Surely I'd entered into some Twilight Zone parallel universe where such conversations with twentysomething exterminators were perfectly ordinary things. I mean, this exchange couldn't possibly be taking place in this universe in this 21st-century America.

But it did and it was, and though the above was practically the full extent of the conversation, just like that my pissy mood evaporated, the pain in my hip at once became bearable, and the day now promised to be a very good day indeed.

And so it turned out to be.

Transcendent

We've never been overly fond of Bach's six French Suites. For the most part, they've always struck us as Bach-lite, and while there's not a thing wrong with Bach in his lighter moods, it mostly ill suits our fundamentally dark and gloomy spirit.

There is, however, one movement we return to often, and often find occupying our mind in the form of an earworm that refuses to be denied. It's the Sarabande from Suite No. 1, and for those familiar with the movement, its attraction for us will be no surprise in the light of what we've above written. Over the years, we've heard a number of readings of this Sarabande on both harpsichord and piano, all played by keyboardists whose musicianship is unquestionably first-rate. But to our ears only one of these seems to have captured the innate profundity of this deceptively simple movement. Perhaps needless to say for longtime readers of S&F, that reading is by Glenn Gould.

Previously on S&F, we had this to say about Gould's Bach readings:

Over the past few months or so, we've found that our recorded music listening has consisted mostly of rehearings of Bach's keyboard works performed by various keyboardists ... and were struck by how all those readings save Gould's seem to share a single element in common: they all deal with the music at its impeccable and complex formal surface ... seemingly never daring to go, or even look, beneath. Gould alone dared that, and ... produced readings that truly deserve that overworked encomium, transcendent. After absorbing Gould's reading of a Bach keyboard work, all other readings of that work seem lacking in one way or another, or even just plain "wrong" no matter how stylistically note-perfect they may be.

And so it is with this Sarabande.

Here, for telling instance, is a reading by that most excellent pianist András Schiff. Note, please, that he takes the repeats of both limbs of the binary as written, and his reading of this lovely Sarabande is impeccable formally and stylistically albeit taken at a tempo that's, shall we say, somewhat too brisk for this dance form; a first-rate reading by any standard (the standards of doctrinaire HIPies perhaps excepted), and every inch a proper German Baroque sarabande.▼

Now, here's Gould's reading. And note, please, that he omits the written repeat of the second limb of the binary. After listening closely to this reading, we trust we'll not have to explain to you why.▼

As we've written, a reading that "truly deserve[s] that overworked encomium, transcendent."

Pondering The Imponderable

Over the past few months or so, we've found that our recorded music listening has consisted mostly of rehearings of Bach's keyboard works performed by various keyboardists, all absolutely first-rate musicians and performers — from Landowska's richly gothic-Romantic and Kirkpatrick's stylistically "pure" readings on harpsichord to widely varied readings on piano such as those by Gould, Richter, Schepkin, Schiff, etc. — and were struck by how all those readings save Gould's seem to share a single element in common: they all deal with the music at its impeccable and complex formal surface, even Landowska's, seemingly never daring to go, or even look, beneath. Gould alone dared that, and when he wasn't being a wiseass (which he on occasion could be, especially when he wasn't overly fond of a piece as was the case with some of the preludes of The Well-Tempered Clavier), produced readings that truly deserve that overworked encomium, transcendent. After absorbing Gould's reading of a Bach keyboard work, all other readings of that work seem lacking in one way or another, or even just plain "wrong" no matter how stylistically note-perfect they may be.

In a 2006 S&F post titled, "Revelatory Tidbit", we wrote:

Perhaps the most illuminating nontechnical characterization of Bach's keyboard polyphony — illuminating for performer and listener alike — is that, at bottom, it's an in-progress intellectual and philosophic conversation carried on by intellectual equals. [...] While all first-rate keyboardists recognize that in-progress conversation and acknowledge its existence in their Bach readings, Gould alone among them understands precisely what each speaker is saying, knows exactly what the conversation is about, and understands fully all its manifold implications.

Although we would have phrased it differently then, that's been our feeling from our first introduction to Gould's Bach in 1955 via his first commercial recording of the Goldberg Variations, and today still remains our best explanation for the largely imponderable, almost uncanny "rightness" of Gould's readings of the keyboard works of that most profound of all musical geniuses, Johann Sebastian Bach.

How To Deal With An Earworm

For the past couple days or so, our constant companion has been an earworm of various extended snatches from the Bach keyboard partitas. Not too shabby as earworms go, we'll grant you, but an earworm is an earworm all the same, and earworms are, well, damn annoying.

What to do?

Well, if you're going to hear those partitas no matter what, you might as well hear them in the flesh, so to speak. And so, adopting the principle of, "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em", our solution was to slide a CD (Gould, natch) of the first five into the ol' CD player, press "Play", set the repeat function to "All", and let 'er rip which they've now been doing for the past twenty-six hours straight.

Simple, but effective.

God bless technology!

(Speaking of which, we've been without a computer for the past month as our trusty but ancient Dell desktop machine bit the proverbial dust early in January; ergo, our absence here. It's now been replaced by a sleek, handsome new Dell Studio laptop (our very first laptop), and apart from a couple startup glitches which may or may not be permanently fixed, and a keyboard layout that's driving us batty and will continue to do so until we get the feel of it under our fingers, we love it.)

A New Find (For Us)

We were introduced recently to the work of a now deceased artist whose name was previously unknown to us: pianist Friedrich Gulda who died in 2000. The introduction was by way of a Deutsche Grammophon CD entitled, "Gulda Plays Bach", and for us it was a startling find as Gulda proved to be that rarest of 20th-century pianists: a pianist who uses the piano to perform Bach exactly as that instrument ought to be used, which is to say absent all trace of anachronistic and inappropriate largely Romantic pianistic devices which for more than a century now have defined first-rate, expressive piano playing. (For more detail on what we mean here, see this S&F post starting with the graf that begins, "So, beyond the business of the repeats and the self-invented embellishment, what was it I found so ultimately disappointing about Schepkin's reading [of the Goldberg Variations]?".)

We may be biased on this point, but we can't help but think that Gulda's Bach performance as heard on this CD as it relates to pianistic technique was influenced largely by the Bach readings of Glenn Gould even though their interpretations of the works in question are by no means the same or even similar. To state in the proverbial nutshell the principal common difference between the two would be to say that Gulda's interpretations are pitch-perfect true to both the letter and spirit of the scores, while Gould's go one transcendent order of magnitude beyond, the for the most part almost uncanny "rightness" of his readings so compelling that one is forced ultimately to abandon all ordinary critical criteria and say helplessly (and somewhat lamely) that Gould seems to have had some sort of mystical direct connection to the innermost musical mind of Bach himself, divining there what's impossible for any composer to notate on the cold, hard pages of a score.

That having been said, we cannot recommend too highly this CD of Gulda's Bach performances which includes the English Suites Nos. 2 and 3, the Italian Concerto, the C-minor Toccata (BWV 911), and an early Bach work, the Capriccio "On the departure of a beloved brother" (BWV 992). As an added bonus, there's also included a Prelude and Fugue written by Gulda himself which is modeled on Bach but is strictly a 20th-century work that's quite jazzy from beginning to end; a fun piece that displays a not inconsiderable gift for composing on Gulda's part.

Gould's Secret Revealed

I've on a number of occasions over the course of Sounds & Fury waxed both poetic and technical on Glenn Gould's readings of Bach's keyboard works (that is, poetic to the extent possible by a non-poet, and performance-technical to the extent possible by one lacking any formal training on a keyboard instrument) in an attempt to express just what it is that makes a Gould reading of these works the sui generis thing it plainly is even to untrained ears, and also in an attempt to get at just what it is that makes these readings sui generis (and I do not speak here about those Bach readings by Gould which find him operating in wiseass, épater les bourgeois, look-what-I-can-do mode (infrequent), but about those Bach readings which make up the bulk of his readings of these nonpareil keyboard works), and can't help but conclude I've in large part failed in my attempt at the latter.

Lately, I've taken to playing various selections from Gould's recordings of both books of the Well-Tempered Clavier while lying in bed just before going off to sleep for the night; not to lull me asleep, but because I find it puts me in a state of mind in which my listening becomes largely unmoderated by critical or analytic thought which state I find pleasurable if mildly unnatural, and a most satisfyingly relaxing way to end a day. And strange to tell, it was during one of these listening sessions that I think I discovered the secret to what it is that's at the technical (as opposed to interpretive) heart of what makes a Gould Bach reading the sui generis thing that it is.

It's almost immediately apparent to any close listener that Gould's Bach readings are remarkable for their almost uncanny delineation of the works' horizontal (melodic) contrapuntal lines while the proper vertical (harmonic) interlacing of those lines is fully maintained. What's not immediately apparent is just what it is about that delineation that strikes one as uncanny and so unlike that of any other pianist — at least any other pianist of my experience.

It's an almost second-nature mental device of mine — one I've employed hundreds, maybe thousands, of times in my life when listening to any musical work — to isolate for attention a single horizontal musical line of the score whether it be the principal melodic line or a line of the surrounding counterpoint, and follow that line through whole paragraphs of the composition before shifting attention back to the full musical fabric of the piece or to another single horizontal line. (A single horizontal musical line is the maximum that can be singled out for attention in that way by humans. Imagining one can simultaneously single out more than a single horizontal musical line for that sort of attention is a mere illusion produced by one's unconscious rapid-fire shifting of attention from one line to another.)

As it's a natural, so to speak, it should then come as no surprise I've done that an uncountable number of times over the years while listening to Gould's Bach readings. This time, however, something struck me about Gould's performance of these works that had previously escaped my conscious perception. And that is that no matter what interior horizontal line I chose to isolate for attention in that way at any point in the performance, and no matter how dense or complex the surrounding counterpoint, that line was not only articulated perfectly and at the proper dynamic, but played with such perfect effortlessness it was as if it were being played by a pianist who had nothing else to do with his fingers but play that single line alone.

But this is impossible technically, isn't it? Yet there it is. With any other pianist of my experience performing these works, if one isolates any single interior horizontal line for attention in that way, one is always aware the pianist's fingers have things to do other than to play that single line. Some sense of effort is always apparent and affecting the articulation of that line no matter how subtly. With Gould, however, that sense of effort is simply absent, and the perfect articulation of that line unmarred and unimpeded. And it's no trick accomplished by recording engineers as it's immediately apparent in the isolation of any single interior horizontal line at almost any point one chooses to isolate it for that sort of attention.

No wonder, then, that listening in the normal way to Gould's readings of these works one feels that the delineation of the works' contrapuntal lines with their proper contrapuntal and harmonic interlacing fully maintained has something of the uncanny about it. It's a direct result of Gould's keen awareness of the importance of each of those lines in both the contrapuntal and harmonic fabric of the work, and of that impossible technical mastery of his instrument which allowed him to realize both to their fullest; a technical keyboard capacity which, it seems, Gould and Gould alone possessed — in these works at least.

How fortunate for us Gould lived at a time when the permanent capturing of such miracles on tape or other medium was possible and so was preserved to be heard by any and all even in the remotest future and at the remotest reaches of the globe.

Would the same had been true for certain other legendary music prodigies of the past.

An Explanation Requested And Provided

A “lurker” on a classical music forum on which we occasionally post links to pertinent articles on Sounds & Fury — a forum on which there are almost always raised outraged cries of the you’re crazy sort directed against us whenever the subject of those articles is Glenn Gould, the piano versus the harpsichord for the performance of the Baroque keyboard rep, or the proper performance of Bach’s keyboard works — asks:

You’ve often praised to the skies the Bach performances of Landowska and Gould, yet the Bach performances of those two artists are worlds apart. It seems to me, at least, that to someone such as yourself who seems to have a rigid opinion of what constitutes correct Bach performance that if you loved the one, you would at least dislike or disapprove of the other. How do you explain cheerleading for both?

Excellent question, and we confess we never gave much thought to the apparent discrepancy because in our mind there’s none.

While it’s true that the performances of Bach’s keyboard works by these two extraordinary keyboard artists are quite different, they’re hardly “worlds apart,” as my correspondent put it, despite the fact that Landowska performed almost exclusively on the harpsichord, and Gould, the piano. Worlds apart would be the Bach performances of pianists such as, say, Sviatoslav Richter or András Schiff (to mention two names that came up in the current forum brouhaha on this subject) and the performances of either Landowska or Gould. The former two are 20th- and 21st-century pianistic readings and everything untoward that implies, while the latter two are readings that, in their own ways, are unvaryingly true to and deeply respectful of the period of the works’ creation and the instrument for which the works were originally written, and true to and deeply respectful of the architectural and musical demands of the music itself which argue forcefully against the sort of anachronistic pianistic “expressivity” that almost all pianists seem incapable of eschewing in the performance of these keyboard works; works written principally for, and fully aware and exploitative of the idiomatic qualities of, instruments incapable of such “expressivity”: the single- and double-manual harpsichord (I omit the clavichord from inclusion here as that curious instrument, which has charms peculiar to itself alone, was in the time of Bach used largely in the home and for the most part by amateur dabblers and therefore was not a principal concern of Bach’s, and exclude as well the organ as it’s a separate case altogether).

We said above that the readings of Bach’s keyboard works by Landowska and Gould are very different (but not “worlds apart”), the readings by the former being what might be (and have pejoratively been) called “Romantic” (upper case R) even “gothic,” as we put it in this article on Landowska’s reading of the Well-Tempered Clavier; and the readings by the latter, “uncannily pure,” “precise,” and “lean-and-mean” as we put it in the same article.

Considering the instrument chosen by each of these artists for their performance of these works, that sounds almost contradictory, does it not? One would have expected exactly the opposite to obtain: Gould’s piano readings being the more “Romantic,” and Landowska’s harpsichord readings, the more “uncannily pure,” “precise,” and “lean-and-mean.” A moment’s reflection, however, instantly dissolves the contradiction.

Landowska was, in a sense, “protected” by her instrument of choice, and could therefore attempt her so-called-but-not-really “Romantic” phrasings and registrations knowing that her instrument would automatically ensure she could do nothing that could not have been done by the instruments for which this music was principally written. Not so with Gould and his instrument of choice. He knew that had he attempted to follow Landowska’s approach, his instrument would have instantly betrayed him and made his readings sound truly Romantic — the fate of almost every other pianist who has attempted to eat his Baroque cake and have it too.

By the above en passant musing we do not mean to suggest that’s the reason for the approach taken by each of these two artists. Their very different readings are, of course, the result of their very different visions of this music. By the above we meant only to resolve the apparent contradiction of one’s failed expectations concerning these two artists and their chosen instruments.

So, then, what is it about these two very different readings that permits us to “prais[e] [both] to the skies” without hesitation or any sense of discrepancy?

Well, the answer has already been given above; viz., that the readings by both Landowska and Gould are “unvaryingly true to and deeply respectful of the period of the works’ creation and the instrument for which the works were originally written, and true to and deeply respectful of the architectural and musical demands of the music itself” — qualities lacking in one respect or another in the readings of these works by almost all modern-day pianists. Further, the readings by both these artists are invariably realized with stellar virtuosic artistry, technical and musical. What is there not to “prais[e] to the skies” in both readings?

We confess, however, that we sense a deeper difference between the readings of these two great artists; a difference not adequately expressed by adjectives such as “Romantic” and “lean-and-mean,” and one, we’re afraid, that can’t be expressed in objective or rational terms. And that is that while Landowska’s readings are profoundly and richly affecting, Gould’s reveal the transcendent core of the music; that which transcends even the music’s earthly profundity and considerable earthly beauty. With Gould’s Bach readings it’s as if, through the music, there existed but a one-degree-of-separation connection between Gould and the Divine source. The connection goes: Bach to the Divine source and Gould to the innermost musical mind of Bach; ergo, one degree of separation between Gould and the Divine source.

We freely admit that’s not the sort of thing a conservatory trained musician ought to be saying; is even the sort of thing such a one ought to be ashamed and embarrassed to say. But as Amadeus’s Emperor Joseph was wont to declare, “There it is.”

And so it is, and we’re not the least inclined to make apology for it.

Bach by Gould — On The Harpsichord

Perfection! (Musically, that is.)

(Our thanks to Bart Collins of The Well Tempered Blog for the link.)

We’re Just Sayin’, Is All

[Note: This post has been updated (1) as of 1:25 PM Eastern on 8 Mar. See below.]

Concert pianist and blogger Jeremy Denk of Think Denk rips Harold Fromm, Visiting Scholar in English at the University of Arizona, a new you-know-what for his recent essay in the Hudson Review, ”J.S. Bach In The Twenty-First Century”, and, by extension, rips us a new one as well for our article of the same name labeling said essay superb and recommending its reading (Mr. Denk links our article in his).

It seems Mr. Denk’s two primary objections are 1) to Dr. Fromm’s credentials (he’s, after all, no professional musician, much less a professional pianist of accomplishment), and 2) to the “pontificating” tone of Dr. Fromm’s argument and the supposed inaccuracies contained therein. (We guess that makes three primary objections, but who’s counting.)

While we can’t help but agree with Mr. Denk that Dr. Fromm has indeed adopted a pontificating tone in his argument, and agree as well that such a tone tends to be thoroughly annoying, most especially to professionals in the domain that is the subject of the argument, we can’t exactly condemn Dr. Fromm for its use without sounding the hypocrite as we’ve been known in our writings to adopt such a tone ourself. We do, however, take issue with Mr. Denk as regards what he considers to be inaccuracies in Dr. Fromm’s essay, which inaccuracies Mr. Denk goes about skewering via the technique of (mis)representing those supposed inaccuracies in straw man type terms the better to skewer them — the very technique he accuses Dr. Fromm of employing (shades of Freudian projection!).

Consider this example:

Dr. Fromm writes:

Bach’s Italian Concerto provides a perfect demonstration of all these qualities, with furious propulsion punctuated by dense chords in the outer movements and arioso lyricism in the middle (exploiting two keyboards), written into the music, no “expression” needed, just the player’s skill on the harpsichord. An “expressive” piano performance that turns it into one of Mendelssohn’s Songs Without Words subverts its most distinctive and powerful properties.

Writes Mr. Denk in rebuttal:

[M]ore central to the problem of this passage, I am sure the reader will realize, is Harold’s [Fromm’s] use of the word “expression.” I am sure Mr. [sic] Fromm is somewhat uneasy about his use of this word, too, since he always puts it in quotation marks, as if that will fix what is wrong with what he is saying. ANYONE who tells you there is “no expression needed” to play the Italian Concerto is an idiot. Just play the notes, they say! [...] This kind of statement, that everything is “written into the music,” reveals a desperate ignorance of the millions of small interpretative and expressive decisions that go into even the most basic realization of a musical score; it goes against the underlying contract of notated Western music.

Let’s be generous, and assume Mr. Fromm puts “expression” in quotes to designate a certain type of expressivity. So that there is no mistake, in defining this type of expressivity, he invokes the Songs without Words... “music for ladies” is the hidden implication here, and if you don’t think so I have a bridge to sell you... Later he refers to the “genteel Gallic” Casadesus family and the “melting, exquisite, precious, Chopinesque” pianist marring Mozart. Do ya get it yet? Not only are you egregiously playing on the wrong instrument, but the way you are doing it makes you a Frenchified girlyman.

Well, in the context of this essay, where Dr. Fromm puts the term “expression” in quotes, he’s clearly referring to the inappropriate, pianistic sort of expressivity typically employed by pianists in their performance of Bach's keyboard works; an expressivity more appropriate to piano works of the 19th century; an expressivity that’s indeed “subver[sive] [of Bach’s keyboard works’] most distinctive and powerful properties.” We’ve elsewhere said pretty much the same thing ourself as in this post on Schepkin’s performance of the Goldberg; viz.,

So, beyond the business of the repeats and the self-invented embellishment, what was it I found so ultimately disappointing about Schepkin's reading? The very thing that makes all readings of my experience of this work performed on the modern piano ultimately disappointing, Gould's 1955 reading most singularly excepted: the performing pianists simply cannot forget they're pianists as they must when performing any Baroque keyboard work — by Bach especially, and the Goldberg most especially of all.

And by that I do not mean they should forget how to work their instrument as pianists; indeed, all their pianistic skills will be called on in extreme measure in order to overcome the impediment of their instrument in realizing this music as it needs, even demands, to be realized. What these pianists must, but seemingly cannot, forget as pianists are the various standard pianistic techniques employed to produce what has universally come to be accepted as beautiful and expressive piano playing and sonority, among them the techniques of the pianistic legato and cantabile — achieved by fingering alone, or in combination with, or alone by, discrete use of pedal — and a certain lightly tripping staccato; effects impossible on the instrument for which these variations were written, and therefore inimical to this music.

But perhaps the most damaging pianistic device of all — one universally employed by all pianists for all keyboard music, the keyboard music of the Baroque not excluded (again, Gould singularly excepted) — is the pianistic realization of the notion that all music is made up of melody and accompaniment, with the melody always expressed, to greater or lesser degree, in some measure of relief in terms of loud-soft (forte-piano) dynamics. No pianistic device is more destructive — fundamentally destructive — of the essential contrapuntal structure, the polyphony, of any Bach keyboard work. In short, it's musically the very kiss of death for a Bach keyboard work, and nothing, no matter how otherwise salutary, can overcome or compensate for its employment (or, rather, misemployment).

Mr. Denk can rail all he wants against this view of the matter, but it’s a view that’s anything but ignorant or ill informed or offered thoughtlessly, its “pontificating” tone notwithstanding.

Or consider this example from Mr. Denk’s article.

Dr. Fromm writes:

Bach wrote his keyboard and organ music for instruments capable of linear performance only, uninflected by touch.

To which Mr. Denk writes in rebuttal:

For the life of me, I can’t figure out what this phrase “linear performance” might mean. Does it mean you play looking forward in a straight line? I suppose lines are to be distinguished from curves, whorls, ovoids, and other shapes? He says “uninflected by touch,” but he CERTAINLY can’t mean that, since variations in articulation, in attack, in the nature of the connection from one note to the next—in other words, things inflected by touch—are among the absolute essential expressive devices on the harpsichord, without which the harpsichordist might as well give up, have several martinis, and go home. I guess he means dynamic contrast?

[...]

Here I come (at last) to the meat of my matter. Mr. [sic] Fromm proposes that Bach wrote his keyboard music specifically “not to be inflected by touch.” Now, let’s even leave aside all the keyboard music that is a transcription of music for other instruments—which is quite a bit of music. Let’s give Fromm an undeserved break, and brush that off the table. Do we imagine that Bach sat down to write keyboard music and composed, specifically, music that should be absent of dynamic inflection?

After which Mr. Denk goes off on an extensive screed on the matter of dynamic contrast and inflection which manifestly is NOT what Dr. Fromm was referring to by his, “instruments capable of linear performance only, uninflected by touch.” Clearly, what Dr. Fromm was referring to was the incapacity of instruments such as the Baroque organ and harpsichord to respond to touch as regards a note’s initial sounding on those instruments — the note’s attack — both instruments being totally insensitive to touch as regards that quality; a quality to which the modern concert grand is exquisitely sensitive as regards touch.

Well, you get the idea.

We can understand Mr. Denk’s annoyance with Dr. Fromm’s essay, Mr. Denk being an uncommonly well-informed professional musician and a concert pianist and all, and a fine one at that from all reports. But that doesn’t excuse his willful straw-man-ing (we know; there is no such word) of Dr. Fromm’s points in order to make his own, not to speak of his pettifogging complaints concerning Dr. Fromm’s skills as an essayist and inclusion of matters familiar to musicians even though they wouldn't be to the general music-loving audience to whom the essay is addressed.

We’re just sayin’, is all.

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Update (1:25 PM Eastern on 8 Mar): Our eMail tells us we’ve given the impression here that we’re against Bach’s keyboard works being played on a modern concert grand, and therefore in agreement with Dr. Fromm’s, “And, of course, playing Bach on today’s grand pianos is ... egregious.”

Au contraire. We’ve no such objection. It’s the typical pianist’s use of that instrument in the performance of Bach’s keyboard works to which we object as we made perfectly clear in this Sounds & Fury article which we here recommend to your attention.

Gould Playing The Goldberg

[Note: This post has been updated (1) as of 11:55 AM Eastern on 11 Jul. See below.]

In conjunction with our current a previous Featured Past Post entry (Gould's Goldberg — Earlier or Later?), here's a video of Glenn Gould in performance of the Goldberg. I've no idea of the original source for this video or of the date of its recording, but judging from Gould's reading, the date is around the time of the 1981 CD recording (the "Later" of the "Earlier Or Later" in our Featured Past Post entry's title). For reasons unknown, the closing Aria da Capo is omitted.

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Update (11:55 AM Eastern on 11 Jul): Constant Reader TMK of Washington, DC advises us that the above Gould video is a film made by Bruno Monsaingeon in April/May, 1981. Our thanks to TMK.

Revelatory Tidbit

Listening last night to Glenn Gould's reading of The Well-tempered Clavier, Books I and II, I wondered, and not for the first time, what it was about Gould's Bach that made it so compelling, even — dare I say it? — transcendent. There are a number of readings of Bach's keyboard works by harpsichordists and pianists that are by any fair-minded and honest assessment first-rate — those by Landowska and Andreï Vieru spring instantly to mind — but no other reading of my experience possesses that uncanny quality of almost preternatural rightness that's the preeminent hallmark of Gould's Bach readings.

Perhaps the most illuminating nontechnical characterization of Bach's keyboard polyphony — illuminating for performer and listener alike — is that, at bottom, it's an in-progress intellectual and philosophic conversation carried on by intellectual equals. And, interestingly, embedded within that anthropomorphic characterization lies, I think, the answer to the question.

While all first-rate keyboardists recognize that in-progress conversation and acknowledge its existence in their Bach readings, Gould alone among them understands precisely what each speaker is saying, knows exactly what the conversation is about, and understands fully all its manifold implications.

Pretty Piece

Here's a pretty piece on Glenn Gould which ends:

In the last interview Gould gave — republished in The Glenn Gould Reader — he comprehensively rubbished the early Romantic repertoire. "I have always felt that the whole centre core of the piano repertoire is a colossal waste of time ... This generalization includes Chopin, Liszt, Schumann ... I don't think any of the early Romantic composers knew how to write for the piano ... The music of that era is full of empty theatrical gestures, full of exhibitionism, and it has a worldly, hedonistic quality that simply turns me off."

Yes, that negates just about everything poor old [pianist, Alfred] Brendel stands for. But for others, it represents the most bracing provocation from the ultimate aesthete. Long live Glenn Gould; long may he continue to provoke.

To all of which I can only say, Amen!

Schepkin's Goldberg

[Note: This post has been edited for clarity, and to correct certain infelicities of expression as of 2:19 AM Eastern on 27 Nov.]

I've now had a chance to audition properly the Sergey Schepkin reading of Bach's Goldberg Variations, and that reading plays perfectly into the more general post I'd begun writing concerning Bach's keyboard works performed on the modern piano, which post I stayed when I determined to first give this reading a listen before committing my general thoughts to print. That intended more general post is now rendered superfluous as I can make all my principal points writing about this one reading alone.*

As I noted here, from the Amazon clips I'd listened to, Schepkin's reading promised to be superb. As it turned out, it's merely yet another thoughtful reading of the Goldberg notwithstanding that, throughout, the reading displays a secure and highly accomplished pianism, and an often pianistic awareness of the possibilities and limitations of Bach's original instrument; an awareness largely disregarded in most pianists' readings of this work. My snap observation in my above referenced squib that the clips I'd heard indicated Schepkin owed an obvious debt to Glenn Gould was borne out by my audition of the complete reading, and was, I'm pleased to report, even corroborated by Schepkin himself in the enclosed liner notes. Despite that debt, however, I found this reading to be an ultimately disappointing one.

First, it's my feeling this reading would have benefited greatly had Schepkin not chosen to take all the repeats (or any of the repeats, for that matter); a practice that makes little sense for any modern performer of this work as those repeats are there not because the music demands them to complete or fulfill itself musically, but because the repeats provided the contemporary performer of the work the occasion for applying at will his own invented embellishment** as was the common, even obligatory, practice of the time, most especially when the performer was a genuine keyboard virtuoso as was the young Johann Gottlieb Goldberg for whom the Variations were written. As the great Donald Francis Tovey, writing in the 1930's, put it concerning the repeats in the Goldberg (and I paraphrase a bit only because I cannot immediately lay my hands on the source for the verbatim quote), "Anyone who today takes all the repeats in the Goldberg is but an academic pedant." To which I say, Amen.

Needless to say — or rather, it ought to be needless to say — no modern performer, no matter how much the virtuoso, or how much the scholar, has either the Baroque sensibility, the Baroque training, or immersion in the living Baroque culture and tradition necessary to permit him to supply his own invented embellishment at will and have it sound as authentic Baroque ears would have expected it to sound (especially true of one Schepkin-invented embellishment, several times used, that sounds like the musical equivalent of a hiccup). Consequently, any self-invented embellishment freely applied by a modern performer (and Schepkin does so in profusion, and at times applies his invented embellishment in the first statement as well as the repeat) is little more than a greater or lesser informed conceit on his part, and a practice that ought not to be tolerated, much less encouraged.

So, beyond the business of the repeats and the self-invented embellishment, what was it I found so ultimately disappointing about Schepkin's reading? The very thing that makes all readings of my experience of this work performed on the modern piano ultimately disappointing, Gould's 1955 reading most singularly excepted: the performing pianists simply cannot forget they're pianists as they must when performing any Baroque keyboard work — by Bach especially, and the Goldberg most especially of all.

And by that I do not mean they should forget how to work their instrument as pianists; indeed, all their pianistic skills will be called upon in extreme measure in order to overcome the impediment of their instrument in realizing this music as it needs, even demands, to be realized. What these pianists must, but seemingly cannot, forget as pianists are the various standard pianistic techniques employed to produce what has universally come to be accepted as beautiful and expressive piano playing and sonority, among them the techniques of the pianistic legato and cantabile — achieved by fingering alone, or in combination with, or alone by, discrete use of pedal — and a certain lightly tripping staccato; effects impossible on the instrument for which these variations were written, and therefore inimical to this music.

But perhaps the most damaging pianistic device of all — one universally employed by all pianists for all keyboard music, the keyboard music of the Baroque not excluded (again, Gould singularly excepted) — is the pianistic realization of the notion that all music is made up of melody and accompaniment, with the melody always expressed, to greater or lesser degree, in some measure of relief in terms of loud-soft (forte-piano) dynamics. No pianistic device is more destructive — fundamentally destructive — of the essential contrapuntal structure, the polyphony, of any Bach keyboard work. In short, it's musically the very kiss of death for a Bach keyboard work, and nothing, no matter how otherwise salutary, can overcome or compensate for its employment (or, rather, misemployment).

Where the Goldberg is concerned, one cannot argue, as one can with some plausibility argue with, say, the preludes and fugues of the Well Tempered Clavier, that Bach wrote the work to be performed on any keyboard instrument, presumably, by extension, including even the unknown to him modern piano; wrote it to be performed on the feeble-voiced clavichord (an instrument thought by some to be Bach's favorite) with its possibilities for a limited range of forte-piano dynamic and true legato, as much as he wrote it to be performed on the harpsichord. The argument fails with the Goldberg as not only was the work written for the harpsichord specifically, but for a double-manual harpsichord in particular. That means the harpsichord, with all its possibilities and limitations, actually shaped to a meaningful degree the very structure of the music itself. And it does no good to argue — an argument typically attempted as justification for the pianistic excesses of most modern pianists — that had Bach access to a modern piano he would have utilized all its possibilities. Had Bach access to a modern piano the Goldberg would have been a very different piece of music from what it is, for in the same way that the harpsichord to meaningful degree shaped the musical structure of the Goldberg, so would have the modern piano had Bach access to it. The argument, then, is both specious and moot, and cannot stand.

I've spoken above of Schepkin's pianistic awareness of the possibilities and limitations of Bach's intended instrument, that awareness reflective, in part, of Schepkin's debt to Gould. As a consequence, Schepkin doesn't quite make the pianist's typical argument for Bach played on the modern piano. Instead, he makes his plea for the piano more subtly (if one were inclined to be cynical about it, one might say more insidiously) thusly (this from the liner notes):

I've encountered people who would sniff at the very idea of Baroque music being performed on the modern grand. It all depends on what you do, and how you do it. [...] Under the fingers of an imaginative player ... [the piano] assumes an uncanny power to produce illusory sonorities of every possible kind. So when we play Baroque music on the piano, why not try to create an illusion of a harpsichord while enjoying the absence of the preset, inflexible sonority that plagues harpsichords? My idea is to play the piano as if it were a "superharpsichord": an instrument with clear and crisp sound, but one that allows for literally millions of degrees of touch and subtle change[s] in sonority.

In his reading of the Goldberg, Schepkin, unhappily, does just that, and more — pianistically-grounded malaprops all. In short, this is yet another example of a pianist wanting to eat his Baroque cake and have it too, and as with all such attempts at cake eating, he cannot escape the predictable — and inexorable — consequence.

A damn shame, too, because in many of the variations Schepkin gets it right — which means he knows what's right — and when he does, the results are truly first-rate. But the Goldberg is not a work experienced variation by variation, but as a single organic unity notwithstanding that its creator almost surely never expected the work to be performed beginning to end in a single performance; a unity shattered by the failure of any one of its parts. Perhaps Schepkin, as another expression of his debt to Gould, will one day give the Goldberg a second recorded reading, but unlike Gould, get all of it right the second time around.

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* For an introduction to the subject of Bach played on the piano versus the harpsichord, see this earlier post.

** By invented embellishment is meant invented as to the embellishment itself, and/or in its placement, as the case may be.

Bach, The Harpsichord, And The Piano

My post on Glenn Gould's two readings of Bach's Goldberg Variations brought several interesting comments. Said one reader:

Bach's compositions performed on the piano are to Bach's compositions performed on the harpsichord what McNuggets are to chicken. The music that Bach composed for the harpsichord sounds clunky and ponderous when it is performed on the piano. Only the harpsichord has the peculiar dynamic and the rapid and even decay necessary to properly interpret Bach's work.

As a matter of fact, I almost agree with that. But only almost. I've a great love for the harpsichord, and even went so far as to have one built for me a long while back (by William Dowd of Boston; a double-manual concert instrument). While it's true that when Bach's keyboard music is performed on the piano the result is typically not a happy one, the fault does not lie with the piano, but with pianists. When properly played, the piano is just dandy for the performance of Bach's keyboard works, and indeed for the performance of the entire Baroque keyboard repertoire.

For those who doubt my word on this, let me attempt to make my case in this way.

First, Bach's keyboard works (organ included, of course) seem to survive, even thrive, under all manner of transcription. So superb is their construction that their fundamental musical aesthetic is not diminished one iota even when subjected to transcriptions as outré as those done for Wendy Carlos's synthesizer, and Ward Swingle's Swingle Singers. Or when subjected to the somewhat less outré but nevertheless Romantically excessive transcriptions for piano by Ferruccio Busoni, and even the grotesquely bloated ones for full orchestra done by Leopold Stokowski. In all these, Bach emerges unsullied and triumphant — always.

As concerns the Goldberg Variations specifically, it's one of the very few works Bach wrote explicitly for the two-manual harpsichord with its full complement of registers — two 8', one 4', and one lute stop — as well as, presumably, the additional and very German 16' register (Bach's own harpsichord was so equipped). What can be accomplished with relative (underline relative) ease on this two-manual instrument becomes hugely difficult on an instrument with but a single keyboard. But that difficulty notwithstanding, the Goldberg has been done, and done excellently well, on such keyboard-challenged instruments.

The harpsichord, both in its two-manual and single-manual incarnations, is a natural for realizing the multiple contrapuntal lines of a Bach keyboard work. Its method of tone production is the principal reason why. Unlike the piano, the strings of the harpsichord are plucked from beneath by a device called a plectrum (made of either quill or hard leather in the period instrument), rather than struck by a felt-covered hammer as in the piano. The strings of the harpsichord can be plucked in one way and one way only no matter what the harpsichordist does with his fingers at the keyboard (that's not entirely true, but true enough for our instant purpose). A string is either plucked or not plucked, a kind of binary affair, and the sound produced is the same always: very precise attack, and short decay due the instrument's low string tension and relatively flexible sounding board. Perfect for the clear and precise delineation of multiple contrapuntal lines while maintaining their interlaced harmonic (i.e., vertical) coherence.

Not so the piano with its hammered strings. For starters, what the pianist does with his fingers at the keyboard has a profound effect on the sound made by a string when hit by the hammer. The sound produced by the struck string (actually string groups, how many strings in the group depending on the octave) varies greatly, and can range not only in loud-soft dynamic (the original precursor instrument was called a fortepiano, and the full name of the modern instrument is not piano but pianoforte — piano=soft, forte=loud, get it?), but also in its quality of tone (sonority). The attack can be soft and surpassingly delicate, or as if made by the wrath of Mjolnir, the hammer of Thor, or anywhere in-between, and in all cases the decay, unless damped (by releasing the key), is fairly long and resonant due the instrument's high string tension and relatively rigid sounding board, a circumstance not so perfect for the clear and precise delineation of multiple contrapuntal lines.

Well, I do seem to have scuttled my own argument here, haven't I. Not so, actually (surprise!). The key (no pun intended) to understanding why not is embodied in the above sentence that reads in part,

...what the pianist does with his fingers at the piano keyboard has a profound effect on the sound made by a string when hit by the hammer.

Just so. Under control of the proper ten fingers, the hammered strings of the piano can be made to sound just as precise as the plucked strings of a harpsichord. It's something incredibly difficult to achieve consistently and over the stretch of an entire piece (and in fact requires that the piano's key action be carefully adjusted to the task), but not impossible as Glenn Gould performing Bach on the piano makes manifestly and magnificently clear. Under Gould's skilled hands Bach's keyboard music played on the piano no longer sounds "clunky and ponderous" and blurred, but has all its multiple contrapuntal lines and their harmonic interlacing revealed with the same clarity and precision that would obtain naturally and without special effort on the harpsichord. And while the piano lacks completely the rich effects of the harpsichord's multiple registers, it has their analogue in the infinite adjustment of quality of tone (sonority) achievable by keyboard touch alone, a technique denied the harpsichordist no matter how great a master of the instrument he may be. And so, as I've above asserted, the problem of Bach's keyboard works performed on the piano is a problem not of the instrument, but of the performer alone.

And that, dear reader, is my case for Bach's keyboard works performed on the piano.* Not exhaustive by any means, but pointed enough to make no-nevermind.

Argue with it at your peril.

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* For more detail on this subject, see this later post.

Gould's Goldberg: Earlier or Later?

Lovely Weekend Guest, a first-rate pianist and knowledgeable lover of Bach's keyboard works (she often refers to them by BWV number, for instance) spent part of her last weekend evening here in a friendly but, um, animated discussion with me of Glenn Gould's 1955 and 1981 recordings of Bach's Goldberg Variations (or BWV 988 as LWG calls it just to piss me off). On the whole, I rather prefer the earlier reading, she the later. The readings, both of them, are, of course, marvels, and display in equal measure Gould's trademark, irreproducible, and nonpareil Bach performance technique — the preternatural (horizontal) delineation of multiple contrapuntal lines while maintaining fully their interlaced (vertical) harmonic coherence; the uncanny rhythmic sense, perfectly precise but infinitely plastic; and the equally precise and plastic articulation which commentators and critics insist on referring to as détaché but which is rather a near-perfect pianistic analogue of the highly prized and near-impossible harpsichord legato — but are otherwise world's apart in spirit.

Rambunctious, LWG calls the earlier reading. Staid, I call the later, but only half mean it, using the term largely for reasons of symmetry with her rambunctious. About the only interpretive point on which we agree is that both Gould readings of this without-equal crown jewel of the entire Baroque keyboard repertoire blow away all other readings, truly excellent though some are.

I've had the recordings of both readings in my library almost since the day of their releases (both of which recordings survived the catastrophe that consumed most of the rest of my libraries several years ago), and though I listen to them often, I never really made the effort to nail down exactly why I preferred the one reading over the other. Better late than never, I decide, and so use the weekend's discussion with LWG as a spur.

Leaving aside the Aria (the ground bass of which is the unifying theme upon which the variations are built) which opens and closes the set of variations (and which I here leave aside mostly because I suspect I'm missing something important concerning it in the later reading as I simply cannot conceive a reasonable musical, aesthetic, or emotional justification for the funereal, almost structure-destroying tempo taken for it by Gould in that reading), I always vaguely imagined it was the generally slower — at times significantly slower — tempi of the later reading (i.e., slower as compared with the earlier reading) that provoked my antipathy for, even annoyance with, that reading. But I now see that's not it. Something else. And that something else is, I think, most clearly exemplified in Gould's two readings of Variation 25, dubbed "The Black Pearl" by the great harpsichordist and Bach scholar Wanda Landowska; an astonishing piece of music that enters the set of variations like some alien presence and at its departure leaves one slack-jawed with amazement and wonder.

With its frequent, expectation-subverting harmonic modulations, actual and implied, Variation 25's chromaticism is so extreme it makes the music of Tristan and Parsifal seem positively diatonic by comparison. Gould, in his liner notes for the 1955 release, refers to this variation in his typically provocative way as a "Chopinesque mood-piece," and elsewhere as a "Romantic effusion." It's neither of these, of course, but thoroughly and essentially Bachian throughout. It's simply that it seems to not belong to this set of variations, but seemingly magically still remains one with it while at the same time seeming to inhabit another world altogether.

In his earlier reading, Gould captures this another-world quality perfectly, largely by his circumspect and strategic use of rubato, an expressive device more identified with the Classical period and with Chopin and the Romantics than with Bach, but here used to brilliant effect. This variation is one of the few where the tempo of the earlier reading is taken slightly slower overall than the later (but only marginally so; 6'28" vs. 6'03"; a 6% difference in timings). The confluence of the marginally slower overall tempo and the strategic use of rubati in this earlier reading, however, make the progress of the melodic line and the movement of the astonishing harmonic shifts seem to play out on a scale cosmically slow the variation's internal pulse seemingly proceeding as do the slow wheeling of galaxies through the infinite eons of boundless space, the harmony's expectation-subverting modulations given point by the rubati and suggesting tonalities mystically strange and vastly remote.

As I said, music that leaves one slack-jawed with amazement and wonder — in the earlier reading, that is. In the later reading the rubati, while still present to some extent, are largely emasculated, the internal pulse and inflection of the melodic line and harmonic shifts spun out in deliberately and soberly considered fashion, the variation now seeming more at home with the set's other variations than in the earlier reading because more metrically and sensibly proportional to them. The expectation-subverting modulations are still there, of course, and still give this variation the feel of a vaguely alien presence within the set, but the another-world magic of the earlier reading has gone missing. Gould's deliberate and sober approach to the music bars such mysteries. One's amazement at the variation's harmonic inventiveness remains, of course, but the wonder has fled.

This stately, deliberate sobriety characterizes most (but not all) of Gould's later reading of the Goldberg; a sobriety achieved by various musical means, one of which is Gould's singling out of one of the contrapuntal voices (typically, the unifying element of the Aria's bass line) as if to say, "See? Here it is." In intent, the device is somewhat akin to that used in "Konzept" opera productions wherein the self-involved director insists on pushing his particular "vision" repeatedly in the audience's face lest they miss it. It's a device as annoying here as it is there.

The sheer audacity — the "rambunctious[ness]" — of Gould's earlier reading may be considered by some a mark against it, but for me it's that very audacity that gives revelatory life to that earlier reading, while the deliberately sober later reading largely (but, again, not entirely) eschews audacity as if to act as corrective of the implied youthful excesses of the earlier. While the later reading may achieve its end in that respect, it does so at a cost, and to my way of thinking (and hearing), the cost is simply too great.