Bach NOT on the Pianoforte

Dear Friends,

This is a chestnut, which I have never seen dealt with here.

Clearly the is no physical reason why the keyboard works of JS Bach cannot actually be played on the piano, though interestingly no one seems to have attempted to find a piano from Bach's time and servey the repertoire. The Bach-period piano was not really the same instrument as that of Mozart's, and there seems to next to no evidence that Bach did more than know of its existence. He seems not to have either conceived his music for it or ever specified it as the instruement of choice, though his term Klavier often does not specify whether he had in mind a small one manual harpsichord, the hammer based Claichord, which is inaudible against almost any other sound, or the grand two manual harpsichord. His Organ is another question in its own right, which would be best left out if this at the moment, so as to retain Focus.

I think that the re-arrangements of Bach by Busoni should also fall outside this discussion. They were intended for the Grand Piano and work very effectively. Busoni was a brilliant re-worker, seemingly only intensifying the message of the music without adding any of himself. Quite remarkable.

The sound-world of the Harpsichord is one without dynamics in the pianistic sense, as there is virtually no change in dynamic for the note, dependant on the speed with which the key is struck. I have heard harpsichordists say that a brighter sound will result from a sharper depression of the keys... But esentially the two manual harpsichord has two dynamics, associated with its 4 foot (octave high) manual and its 8 foot, which sounds the notes at the pitch they are written. The instrument has a relatively short sustain, which the French School of compoers account for by always using very many notes, to keep the volume of sound going. But it has a sort of internal resonance which makes a super-sharp staccato seem more of a detache style than the same approach on a piano.

The piano is a much more capable instrument in the sense that it can go much louder, and it has a very wide range of possible dynamics. It has a long sustain, and this has grown very much since the fortepiano of Mozart's time. It is highly damped, so that when the key is released the sound of the note stops very fast indeed, and this we shall discusse later.

If the piano had been more highly developed in Bach's time, he would have used it as surely as Mozart and Haydn did in their time. They evolved the style of keyboard composition for it that Beethoven took over and further developed. So it may be seen than Bach's keyboard style was related to the specific qualities, short sustain, possibility of long passages of detache writing, which, never-the-less, are not waring to the listener, because they are not aggresively short and mechanical, of the Harpsichord in particular. In fact the music sings without any particular effort from the player, as the effect is natural and easy.

But most of all Bach's dynamic use of the keyboard is both simple (as there is no use of dynamic except in the contrasting of two keyboard ranks or manuals), and also very subtle and brilliant. He writes the dynamic into the very music itself by fixing how many notes are to be played over time. Thus again the player is freed from this responsibility and can simply play the notes in his most musical style. Indeed, apart from intelligent registration the player has only to control the accuracy of his fingers, tempi, rubato, and articulation. In fact articulation is the secret to an awful lot in expressive harpsichord playing, as it is how the player marks out something of relative importance, and this contrasts entirely with the piano where the player will use dynamic weight as the first line of presentation in this area. The art of integrating articulation and rubato is what marks out true, great Harpsichordists.

So what is wrong with the piano? Firstly it offers MORE, one might think, but that IS exactly the problem. The very introduction of infinitely gradable dynamics places an incredible burden on a player, then tempted to use an expressive device that is entirely foreign to the very conception of the music. So does he play it all over at one even dynamic? Why not use a harpsichord then? Schnabel made some recordings a bit like that, and they are very revealing; I am glad to have heard them, and he knew just what he was doing; it works, but is it great Bach playing? Well yes, I think so... Schnabel was a singular genius!

Another big probelm is that even in singing lines - and most of Bach sings in huge phrases, often puntuated, while his music contains the longest tunes in all music - in that his music is often in the detached style known among string players as "detache." On the piano this is very apt to come out as much more sharply staccato, because of the fundamental extra degree of damping compared to a harpsichord. Long stretches are thus transformed beyond all recognition in terms of their expressive effect. They become what they certainly are not, but sometimes sound like on the piano never-the-less: Long, repetitive, dry, dull acres of scales and arpegios. This many notes flow like a beautiful musical waterfall from the harpschord in perfect focus, but all too easily sound like so many needles being driven mercilessly into the auditor's ear on the piano! So a pianist may soften the approach, and reduce the clarity and focus, so much a feature of the gentler harpsichord, and Bach's many layered style as well! The pianist is "forced" either to make it mechanical and dry (ala Glenn Gould), or romanticise it along the lines of many others. Once this process starts the rubato and expressive dynamics will be also altered and the result taken even further from what the Master had in mind. Bach's style of playing has been quite eloquently described by his sons. Who is to say that he would not have liked his music played on the piano, however? Not me, but in all fairness, Bach was not as pragmatic about the instruments used as legend would have us believe. This a long way from saying he would not taylor music for precise musical forces available. But he might well have been happier not having to, and not only because of the work involved in recasting music. Where he had what he wanted in terms of the forces in performance, he used them to the full. Think of the orchestration in the Passions! I do think he was most careful with his keyboard writing in the same way and we interfere with the works at the music's peril, at least in realising with ease and simplicity its complex textures, and humaine message.

So are there any great perforemnces of Bach on the pianoforte? I would think that there are many, where the problems are solved in the most musical of ways, but they constitute a tiny minority of the recordings availbale today on the piano. Fischer pioneered the Mozart and Bach Keyboard Concerto revival conducting from the piano, in exquisite perforamnces that are still to be had more than 70 years after the earliest was recorded. Every balance issue is addressed so the lines are all clear and musical. The orchestra, larger than Bach's for sure, balances the neads of the piano, and Fischer's style avoids the extremes of romantic legato or severe staccato, which is just as inappropriate. JM Pires manages a similar balancing act, and the result is sublime. Indeed I think it is in the Concerti where the biggest case can be made for the piano as it balances an orchestra large enough to fill with clear sound our modern, at least medium sized halls, which frankly is most hard to achieve on a harpsichord balancing band. In other words our halls are mostly too big for the music, which is a point I have never stopped making, as the details get lost in the greater reverberations of larger halls.

In this respect, and modern performing conditions the compromise may well be acceptable, if not actually preferable for the music's best presentation. But for records there is no excuse. A perfect sized studio and correct sized band should be able to be recorded in good musical balance with the intended instrument, the harpsichord.

As for the solo-keyboard music, the only justifiaction for recording the repertoire on the piano, is that some great pianist has the music under his belt and the resulting reading overcomes all the added difficulties. Few, though, really get the flow, and majesty of it while letting it sing without false lagato or mannered staccato. The intended instrument allows for a natural exposition, without forcing the technique to fit, but really enabling the message to take wing, quite naturally and without straining for effect, or cramping the player in false technical methods, unnatural to the equally beguiling possibities of the pianoforte in ITS natural repertoire. No one would consider playing the Emperer Concerto on a big Harpsichord I hope! The technique and style of good aesthetically pleasing Baroque playing on Baroque instruments is more than capable of realising the demands of this music without the added technical problems the piano necessaily causes, while also presenting us with a natural vision of the music's meaning, let alone its most beautiful sound-world!

Sincerely, Fredrik