Folks, Any other suggestions of clavichord works would be welcomed. What
do you think, Don?
AUG 19, 2001
A Way to Hear Bach Intimately, if Barely
By BERNARD D. SHERMAN
Fifty years ago, pianists and harpsichordists traded insults like
"purist" and "inauthentic." Now famous pianists practice Bach on the
harpsichord, and harpsichordists admit to liking Bach on the piano.
With tensions eased, do we really want to consider claims for yet
another Baroque keyboard instrument?
Maybe. The clavichord, largely overlooked so far in period-instrument
Bach playing, has made a strong showing lately. Even listeners who
don't care at all about historicism have reason to pay heed.
Clavichordists will tell you that theirs is the most responsive
keyboard instrument ever invented. It's the one that "least resembles
a machine," to quote the American period-instrument pioneer Ralph
Kirkpatrick, whose recordings of "The Well-Tempered Clavier" on
clavichord have just been reissued.
Unlike a piano key, which merely throws a hammer at the string, or
a harpsichord key, which plucks it, a clavichord key - or rather,
the metal "tangent" implanted in it - touches the string directly.
And a clavichord's key stays in contact with the string even after
striking it, so that the finger can vary a tone already sounded. What
results, in the words of the American keyboardist Richard Troeger,
who is featured in new Bach releases on clavichord, is "an enormous
range of nuance." Neither a piano nor a harpsichord lets a player
add vibrato to a note, as a clavichord can.
Bach's first biographer, Johann Nikolaus Forkel, on the strength of
interviews with the composer's sons, reported that the clavichord
was Bach's favorite keyboard instrument. The harpsichord, Forkel
wrote, "had not enough soul" for Bach, and the clavichord let him
"express his most refined thoughts" with its "variety in the gradation
of tone." Scholars (and, not surprisingly, harpsichordists) dismissed
Forkel's report for much of the 20th century, but they are now coming
to think that it was probably accurate.
Many musicians argue that the choice of instrument doesn't matter in
Bach's keyboard music; but they might take note of the clavichord in
any case. The instrument has an appealing sound, sweeter than that
of the more muscular harpsichord. And it is better at projecting
Bach's counterpoint, partly because the instrument lets the player
subtly shape inner voices and bass lines so that the ear doesn't lose
them in complex textures.
So why the neglect of the clavichord? For one thing, it is hard to
play. No other keyboard requires such minute control of the fingers.
Once a note is struck on a piano or harpsichord, the finger need only
release it at the right instant. But a clavichord note needs continuous
nurturing throughout its life. If the player's attention flags for
a split second, the note still under a finger can go out of tune or
in various ways turn ugly.
And the real disincentive for performers is the clavichord's notoriously
soft voice. While it may be an antidote to ear-damaging rock concerts,
the clavichord's low decibel level probably challenges 21st-century
ears more than it did 18th-century ones. Hearing loss and tinnitus
have become epidemic in recent decades. Modern background noises
can mask the clavichord's sound, and huge modern concert halls engulf
it.
True, recent scholarship shows that the clavichords Bach knew were
not quite as feeble as those built in the early-20th-century revival
of the instrument. The leader of that revival, Arnold Dolmetsch,
compared the tone of his instruments with the humming of bees. But
the best clavichords now being made or restored can create a stunning
forte.
Stunning, that is, within the instrument's quiet context. Even the
loudest clavichords are too soft for most concert halls. In a paradox
common with period instruments, the perfect medium for clavichordists
is that least historical one, the CD. The Troeger release and the
Kirkpatrick reissue let us hear extraordinary Bach playing that would
barely be audible from the stage of Carnegie Hall, and they show that
the challenging little instrument seems to attract probing, responsive
players.
Kirkpatrick's 1959 recording of Book 1 of "The Well-Tempered Clavier"
(Archiv 289 463 601-2; two CD's) uses a humming-of-bees instrument
made by Dolmetsch. Once your ears adjust to the soft volume, familiar
preludes and fugues seem more eventful than usual. Kirkpatrick
understands the hierarchy of levels in these pieces, from ornaments
to long-range harmonic tensions. At first hearing, his Book 1 sounds
rather "straight": when a passage is driving toward a goal, he never
interrupts it in midsentence. But on closer listening, it reveals
evocative shapings and half-tints.
Kirkpatrick recorded Book 2 (Archiv 289 463 623-2; two CD's) eight
years later on a softer clavichord with a less homogenous sound.
Its upper register sounds more dulcet; its lower one has a metallic
buzz. But the instrument's limitations sometimes seem to inspire
Kirkpatrick.
The difficult D major Fugue, for example, is magical: structural
command melds with heartfelt nuance. In some pieces, Kirkpatrick
bends the tempo more overtly than he did in Book 1, sometimes to
breathtaking effect, as in the opening prelude. Both books have a
few hasty tempos and an occasional lack of needed repose, but such
problems are rare.
Kirkpatrick's two volumes remain, after 34 years, the only complete
"Well-Tempered Clavier" on clavichord. But not for long: Mr.
Troeger is in the process of recording all of Bach's major solo
keyboard works on the instrument (except for a few works that Bach
specifically designated for harpsichord). Many of them have never
been recorded on the clavichord.
THE three releases so far have been memorable not only for Mr.
Troeger's mastery of his instrument but also for his interpretations.
In the partitas (Lyrichord 8038; two CD's), he responds unerringly
to the character and emotion of the different movements while projecting
more of the contrapuntal interest than most performers. In the
toccatas (Lyrichord 8041), he uses the colors of the clavichord to
give shape and variety to long fugues or sequences while also conveying
a sense of improvisation. In the inventions, sinfonias and preludes
(Lyrichord 8047), his sensitive molding serves both the structure
and the expression. All three recordings stand with the best available
on any instrument. They are by no means curiosities.
The orchestrally conceived opening of the Fourth Partita substantiates
Mr. Troeger's claim that his instrument can sound "grand and robust"
as well as lyrical. Indeed, the clavichord by no means reduces the
stature of major works; on the contrary, by revealing so much to the
ear, Mr. Troeger often conveys more of the music's stature than
typical performances.
Mr. Troeger has since made clavichord recordings of Book 2 of "The
Well-Tempered Clavier," "The Art of Fugue," the English and French
Suites, various other suites, fantasias and fugues, and transcriptions
of Bach's solo violin works. A student of Bach's recalled that the
composer often played the solo violin works on the clavichord, but
Mr. Troeger is the first to record them this way. Unfortunately,
his record label, Lyrichord, is having trouble with its distributor,
so the release of all these recordings has been delayed.
Charles Rosen once suggested that the best keyboard instrument for
a Bach fugue is the one that draws the least attention to itself.
A drawback of the clavichord in Bach is that it still sounds exotic
to our ears. The cure, of course, would be for the instrument to
become as familiar today as its larger keyboard brethren. These
recordings should help. Their attractions lie, ultimately, not in
letting us hear how Bach's music sounds on an instrument he apparently
favored but in letting us hear how the music sounds in the hands of
masterly and, often enough, inspired performers.
Bernard D. Sherman is the author of the book "Inside Early Music:
Conversations With Performers.
Copyright 2001 The New York Times Company
Ron Chaplin
Iselin, NJ, USA
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