Bach/Busoni, Chaconne in D Minor, BWV 1004.
French pianist Hélène Grimaud is at the keyboard in an excellent live recital recording from the Berliner Philharmonie.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Music For The Day
Two very different approaches to the same piece of music today – Keyboard Concerto no. 7 in G Minor, BWV 1058, by Johann Sebastian Bach.
Firstly in a recording with Harpsichord solo, performed by Trevor Pinnock with the English Concert Orchestra (second movement only):
And secondly, as interpreted by Glenn Gould on the piano in a performance with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Vladimir Golschmann (full performance):
My preference lies with the latter recording, perhaps unsurprisingly given the fact that I am on record as considering Gould to be my favourite pianist and best interpreter of Bach. I am not one to stubbornly insist that the modern piano is an inappropriate instrument for the performance of Bach, believing (as did Gould himself) that the composer was always looking to test and push the boundaries of what was possible, and would have embraced the modern concert grand piano had it been available in his time.
And while I enjoy the fruits of the period instrument movement to a point, I firmly believe that the evolution in the modern symphony orchestra, as with individual instruments, is not something that need be shied away from or apologised for. The shortcomings of “historically informed performance” are set out very well in this essay from the Arts Journal.
However, setting my preference aside, there is a wonderful musicality to the harpsichord performance, and pleasure to be had in listening to both with an open and receptive ear.
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Music For The Day
The first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier, by J. S. Bach.
As interpreted by pianist Maurizio Pollini.
Glenn Gould would no doubt have spat out his milk and arrowroot biscuits in distaste at being made to listen to this particular recording, but for those with a broader aesthetic taste there is much to admire here.
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Filling In The Blanks On Bach
Andrew Sullivan touches on one of my favourite topics – the music of JS Bach and his unparalleled interpreter, Glenn Gould.
George Stauffer appreciates that John Eliot Gardiner’s recent book on the great composer has insights into his personal character:
Moving beyond the hagiographies of the past, he presents a fallible Bach, a musical genius who on the one hand is deeply committed to illuminating and expanding Luther’s teachings through his sacred vocal works (and therefore comes close to Spitta’s Fifth Evangelist), but on the other hand is a rebellious and resentful musician, harboring a lifelong grudge against authority—a personality disorder stemming from a youth spent among ruffians and abusive teachers. Hiding behind Bach, creator of the Matthew Passion and B-Minor Mass, Gardiner suggests, is Bach “the reformed teenage thug.” In the preface we read: “Emphatically, Bach the man was not a bore.” Neither is Gardiner.
(Video: Glenn Gould plays Bach’s Keyboard Concerto No.1 with Leonard Bernstein and the New York Philharmonic in 1960)
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Music For The Day
Variation XV of “The Goldberg Variations” by Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750), performed here by Rosalyn Tureck, one of my very favourite Bach interpreters aside from the peerless Glenn Gould:
This recording dates from 1957, which is just after Gould made his historic 1955 recording for Colombia Records. However, you will find no influence of Gould in Rosalyn Tureck’s interpretation here. Very classical, with a smoky, melancholy, romantic, almost Victorian hue. And, of course, played much slower and with all of the repeats.
Semi-Partisan Politics 