© Tilman Skowroneck April 2020
My newest CD with works by J.S. Bach is now available on the German label TYXart.
The program includes the Sixth English Suite BWV 811, The Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in E-flat major BWV 998 and Gustav Leonhardt’s version of the Second Violin Partita BWV 1004 which ends with the famous Ciaccona, about which I have previously written in this post. Two sound examples can be found inside this post. (more…)
© Tilman Skowroneck 2013
Musical transmission is a well-explored topic in the history of Western music. In a rare filmed appearance, pianist Edwin Fischer recited, more than explained, how it works: “Beethoven instructed Czerny how to play the Well-tempered Clavier; Czerny taught it to Liszt; Liszt taught it to Eugène d’Albert.” The clip is part of the documentary “The Art of Piano” (found at 1:07:31 of this YouTube video). To complete the lineage for the benefit of readers of our time: d’Albert taught Fischer, who was endorsing his then-new recording of Bach’s WTC.
In addition to being a great-great-grandpupil of Beethoven, Fischer was also a celebrated teacher. His statement about the musical lineage that authenticated his way of playing Bach can be seen as a statement about pedagogy rather than a display of vanity. It tells us that by the mid-20th century, the idea of a student imitating the example of his teacher was considered more than just valuable in a general sense.
To Fischer, the transmission of skills, knowledge and values from teacher to student in an unbroken tradition was profoundly meaningful: the essence of why one became a pupil, or later a teacher. This idea is not new. In France in the 1670s, J.L. Le Gallois suggested the same pedagogy of learning by imitation in his famous praise of Chambonnière’s way of playing: “in order to learn the pieces of each master, it is necessary to study them with the same masters who have composed them, or with their best pupils.”
For a student of harpsichord in Amsterdam in the 1980s, however, learning by imitation was not normally considered an option. On the contrary. (more…)
After years away from the studio, Murray Perahia has issued a new CD with three of Bach’s partitas. The official Perahia website, maintained by Sony, provides audio samples of the new recording. As reviews are being written, we will in all likelihood once again have to endure the silly arguments for and against playing Bach on this, that or the other instrument.
To be sure, Perahia himself has an open-mindedness about the issue that many other pianists (and sadly enough many harpsichord lovers) seem to lack. In this interview, for example, he is quoted as saying “I think the pursuit of authenticity is fine. There’s nothing against it, but it’s not the only way.” (more…)
A typical moment in Bach’s music where the appearance of a sequence obscures the necessity of an asymmetrical technical approach occurs in the second half of the Gigue of the fourth partita in D-major. I am talking about bars 78-83. All the problems of the upward and downward runs of the right hand can be relatively conveniently solved by sliding with the 4th or second fingers. The upward run in bar 78, however, remains insecure. The fifth finger is locked on F#, and the lower fingers (likely 1-1-2-1-2) are forced to tiptoe awkwardly about, risking irregularity, wrong articulations and a crunch into the sharps. Observe the harpsichordist’s or pianist’s left heel during this bar: it wiggles nervously. (more…)
Often, one fails to master a certain passage to ones liking because long ago, one practiced this passage in a tense or otherwise faulty and ineffective manner. In obnoxious cases even patient slow reworking does not entirely solve the problem. The old approach is too well learned-in and likely, ones fear of performing that particular passage further blocks ones concentration.
A new fingering often solves the matter. In fact, most of the time, the originally chosen fingering is the very cause of the trouble. Additionally, a new technical approach opens the door to an empty brain-box, which will be easier accessible in performance and helps to avoid relapsing into the old, discarded approach.
Bar 196 in the cadenza of the fifth Brandenburg concerto is a good example. (more…)
Pianist Claudio Arrau was extremely precise in playing the composer’s notation, and refused to divide certain technical difficulties (such as the beginning of Beethoven’s Op. 111) between two hands, if the notation did not call for it (see Joseph Horowitz Conversations with Arrau, Part 2 “Interpretation”, or the article about Arrau in Joachim Kaiser Grosse Pianisten). In the classical and romantic repertoire, such a reluctance to yield to technical convenience often enhances the sounding result. Beethoven might well have been one of the first composers who notated certain passages in an, from a technical viewpoint, unnecessarily awkward manner for the sake of musical expression. (more…)
Tilman Skowroneck 