J. S. Bach
From the Klavieruebung

* "Goldberg" Variations (mono)
* French Overture (Partita) in b
* Italian Concerto in F
* Four Duets (from Klavieruebung III)

Rosalyn Tureck (piano)
Philips 456 979 Total time: 78:38 + 77:03

Summary for the Busy Executive:  Great Bach.  Great Bach playing.

Tureck's second installment in the Philips "Great Pianists of the 20th
Century" series (vol.  94) brings back some rare important recordings from
the Fifties and from the obscurity of the American Decca label, on which
they first appeared in the United States.  The major work is, of course,
the Goldbergs, and for that reason I'll save it for last.

I'd be willing to bet that most haven't heard the Four Duets.  Bach tacked
them on to a set of organ pieces in the third volume of his Klavieruebung
(roughly speaking, "keyboard exercise").  Tureck is one of the only
pianists I know to have recorded these works.  "Duet" refers not to two
instruments, but to two lines of music, as Tureck herself once pointed
out, "the barest minimum ...  for contrapuntal composition." One normally
associates two-part writing with simplicity, perhaps even naivete, but Bach
confounds expectations.  Though beautiful, these are highly abstract works
- in a sense, skeletons of counterpoint, marvels of rhythmic variety and
independence, the lines never marching in lock-step.  It's as the halves
of two conversations in different parts of town joined in some cosmic ear
with perfect sense.  One also notes how Bach suggests again and again,
particularly in the a-minor duet (no.  4), complex harmonies or, in all
four duets, tonal centers of positively Schoenbergian instability, all with
just two voices.  All of Tureck's virtues, particularly her command of
independent phrasing of the two lines, show up here, but these works don't
particularly demand them.  Bach builds the independence into the works
themselves - restricting the range of each line and differentiating
rhythms.

The so-called French Overture in reality is a partita, although one
standing apart from the usual set of six.  For one thing, to me it sounds
more elaborate than the others and represents a more cosmopolitan point of
view.  But no cosmopolis lives up to the sophistication of this suite.
It comes off a bit like Bach's (or Wallace Stevens's) dream of Paris:
neither one of them ever got there, so the reality never got the chance to
disappoint the ideal.  Bach writes in b-minor, a key he often reserves for
the tragic.  This comes across in spades in the "Courante," which races
along like storm clouds, and in the opening "Ouverture," where a somber
and stately double-dotted intro releases into an allegro which flies along
until (in Tureck's performance) it collapses all at once into the opening
music.  If you ever doubt Tureck's mastery of the keyboard, listen to the
final note of this movement, which strikes at the last possible second
from the decay of the previous note to remain continuous in the line and
at exactly the right dynamic so that it doesn't distort the phrase.  The
last movement - "Echo" - lives up to its name:  a study in sharp dynamic
contrasts of loud and soft.  Curiously, this is the one solo keyboard piece
of Bach's I've heard that really demands a harpsichord.  Not even Tureck's
superb volume control convinces me otherwise.  The piano can provide subtle
gradations of volume, but the piece doesn't call for that.  "Echo" seems
written for a two-manual harpsichord with at least something like a lute
stop.  It's not just the sharp contrast of volume one needs to hear, but
the sharp contrast of timbre provided by the muffling effect of the lute
stop.  If Tureck can't make a case for the piano, nobody can.

Opposed to the relative obscurity of the above pieces, the Italian
Concerto, beloved by pianists and audiences alike, deserves all of its
popularity.  Recordings include those by Bunin, De Larrocha, Richter,
Kipnis, Gould, Landowska, Marlowe, Schnabel, and a slew of others.  In his
volume on chamber music, Tovey refers to the second movement probably more
often than any other keyboard work by Bach.  Tureck disappoints, but only
in comparison to her own high standard.  Basically, I object to her not
recognizing the fun of the work.  She wears a very earnest face here.  The
first movement moves to a too-stately tread, although the 16th-note runs
are light enough.  On the other hand, she brings back treasures from the
deep in the second movement, more than any other performer I've heard.
Her main strategy is to build a long crescendo until just before the end
when she falls back, and with the final bit she repeats that same arch in
little.  The crescendo is so subtle and comes from such a soft beginning
you only realize it in retrospect, once you've reached loud, close to the
end.  The finale, quite fine, nevertheless misses that impetuous joy that
marks so many other performances.

It's worth asking, I think, what exactly provides the basis for the
Goldberg Variations.  Obviously, Bach constructs variations on the opening
little sarabande - but neither on the melody nor on the rhythm (except in
one variation for each).  The variation idea is rather abstract - the
sarabande's bass line or the harmony that bass line implies.  From this
he generates canons, overtures, duets, fugues, 3-part sinfonias, and even
the famous quodlibet, in which several tunes sound simultaneously.  Tovey
unhesitatingly called it the greatest variation set, along with the
Beethoven Diabellis.  Fine by me.  I spent a year studying the Goldbergs,
and while I learned a lot, felt as if it would take me a lifetime at least
to feel as if I understood them even adequately.

The great esteem for the Goldbergs wasn't always thus, at least among the
general public.  Busoni thought them unplayable as written and consequently
produced his own edition, with wholesale rewriting and paraphrases.
Impresarios considered them too much and too abstruse for an audience to
sit through in an evening.  And yet, if Bach ever conceived a work to be
played entire, the Goldbergs are it, with structural bindings all over the
joint.  Every third variation is a canon on an increasing interval, for
example.  That is, the third variation is a canon at the unison, the sixth
at the second, the ninth on the third, and so on.  A little subsidiary
phrase in the fifteenth variation (naturally, a canon at the fifth) closing
the first half shows up as one of the themes of the quodlibet, the final
variation.  These things have a cumulative effect, a reach over the entire
span of the work.  Landowska, Tureck, Gould, and the long-playing record,
I believe, did much to bring this monument to public attention.

I count as one of my greatest concert experiences hearing Tureck in a
packed London hall during the early Seventies give the complete Goldbergs
twice in one evening - first half on harpsichord, second on piano -
stunning both times.  So much for the audience's refusal to sit through
such a work.  Of the recordings I've heard, I like Gould's 1955,
Landowska's RCA, and Tureck's Fifties recordings the best, and - thanks
to American Decca's fall into oblivion - I heard Tureck last.  In general,
I would characterize Gould as nervous and brisk and Landowska as one long
joyous surprise.  Tureck has recorded the variations at least five times
that I know of.  Only the 1979 harpsichord recording on CBS disappointed me
- too stolid.  Here, Tureck is rigorously architectural and breathtakingly
lyrical, both qualities in evidence in the very first variation, where out
of two-part writing she miraculously finds a third part (one, by the way,
which Tovey's analysis misses).  The third variation, the canon at the
unison, is notoriously difficult to play so that one actually hears the
canon.  With Tureck, you needn't worry.

Tureck's account of each variation deserves a paragraph in itself - an
analysis of the variation's structure and then of how Tureck brings it
out.  To spare myself the hard work, I'll simply mention highlights here
and there.  In the fourth variation, for example, Bach plays with the
contrapuntal confrontation of an idea right-side up and up-side down - all
very clear with Tureck.  In the eight variation, Bach does the same thing,
but with two different ideas.  Furthermore, because of the fact that one
idea goes up and the other down (while their inversions go down and up),
lines that start far apart sometimes come very close together, and indeed
one hears the lines cross.  Bach indicates a two-keyboard harpsichord,
and you can well believe him.  The pianist, however, must accomplish this
through phrasing and "touch." With Tureck, you get the sensation that
your ears cross as well at those points, with the lines.  In the tenth
variation, Tureck springs Bach's marvelous surprise that the simple little
sarabande from Anna Magdalena's book can actually become a fugal subject (a
"fughetta" in four parts, in fact), its second four bars a fifth higher
than its first four, thus providing the "proper" entries.  Tureck's fancy
comes to the fore in variation 13 - a wonderfully delicate, syncopated,
florid melody, that ends in a sigh.  I should mention that Bach left very
few indications of how his music should go - one reason why interpretations
vary so much.  I feel the delicacy and wit of this account belongs as much
to Tureck as to Bach.  The sixteenth variation - a famous tour-de-force -
is a "French overture" - that is, a grand introduction of slow dotted
rhythms, followed by a fugal allegro.  It's simultaneously as strict a
variation as any in the set and an incredible shaping of the fundamental
bass line.  Tureck plays with verve, bringing up the curtain on the second
half of the set and reinvigorating our energy for the rest of the play.

By now, you should get the idea that this is one great set, and I leave
you to discover the rest of it on your own.  I haven't emphasized, however,
that Tureck always gives you music, rather than just notes or just teaching
points.  The range and complexity of mood she evokes from this music is
stunning.  It is as much her mood as Bach's, again because Bach doesn't
indicate the emotional character (or even the tempi) of each section.  An
interpretation this good springs from a great deal of period knowledge,
good old-fashioned taste, and complex personality - one that can appreciate
Bach's emotional complexity.  The sound is monaural, but you get all the
separation you need from Tureck's keyboard mastery itself.  Sound is clean.

Steve Schwartz