Fernando
Valenti as a harpsichordist can only
be compared to Wanda Landowska in his
influence on many generations of artists.
The ones who didn't study harpsichord
because they fell in love with Landowska's
recordings, did so because they fell
in love with Valenti's recordings. The carping attacks on him,
his style, and his influence, for a dismal time negated much of
his brilliant contribution, but it is to be hoped that that time
has - with the death of certain influential critics and teachers - passed, and that
he can again be properly revered as
one of the two greatest harpsichordists
of the twentieth century. Until recently
not a single one of his large legacy
of recordings was available but that
is beginning to change, and we can hope
that the change will be rapid.
Right away in the first
pages Valenti asserts his strong personality
by establishing a distance from the
student, who asks questions, to be replied
to by the Professor. I say replied to
because he makes it immediately clear
that the teacher can and will only give
suggestions but the student must in
the final analysis figure things out.
Valenti says that these questions were
examples of those actually asked in
his classes. And make no mistake, this
book is about performing the partitas
and while there is much information
of interest to a listener, the focus
is on actually playing at the keyboard.
A person who has never taken a keyboard
lesson nor looked at the scores of the
Partitas and related works will find
himself or herself bombarded with information
which would be nonsense to them.
He excludes discussion
of whether the Partitas were
written for the clavichord, harpsichord,
or pianoforte (or lute or organ), and
the one attempt by a student to force
this issue is replied to by "a
little knowledge is a dangerous thing".
However, I can answer that one for him:
in 1731, nobody was writing exclusively
for the new and unfamiliar pianoforte,
but no one was writing without an eye
to its likely future, so the partitas
were certainly written first for the
harpsichord, because that was the current
popular recital instrument; for the
clavichord, because that was the student's
home practising instrument; and for
the pianoforte, because that could be
expected to become more popular in the
future. Whether Bach's friend Sylvius
Leopold Weiss could play them on the
lute or not was none of Bach's concern
as Weiss was capable of making any adjustments
for such use as he required, and Bach
would have respected his right and duty
to do so properly and respectfully.
On the organ? Well, maybe, but not primarily
so. There were no "amateur"
organists: one studying the organ played
the clavichord, including the pedal
clavichord, until he could be trusted
with, and could afford, a real instrument.
And again, an organist was used to changing
things as necessary, since every piece
had to be adjusted for the acoustics
of each individual church and for the
registration and temperament of each
particular instrument. So the answer
to the question of whether the partitas
were written for the harpsichord, clavichord,
or pianoforte (or the organ or the lute)
is: yes. In any event the Partitas have
a long and honorable performance tradition
on the pianoforte, and only Helmut Walcha
and Fernando Valenti have been able
to make them sound a lot better on the
harpsichord.
As the popularity of
keyboard instruments and the likelihood
of their being employed varied during
Bach's life, his revision of pieces
already written was very probably to
take this change into account. A piece
written in 1720 for performance on clavichord
and harpsichord would be revised for
use in 1745 on a pianoforte. Do not
mistake, as one critic did, that Bach,
like Beethoven, struggled to perfect
his works through many versions. Bach
may have changed his mind, but he never
struggled, and his earliest version,
played on the instrument for which it
was intended, may well be the best.
As if one needs this comment after hearing
his Scarlatti recordings, Valenti was
a jovial, extroverted man. He drank
and smoked lavishly. He served as M.C.
for a benefit piano concert (fortunately
recorded) where he introduced a roster
of the greatest living pianists with
wit and charm. Yet his Spanish cultural
background gave him a delight in establishing
a dignified distance from his students,
which, from personal testimony, was
breached at the correct time by Valenti
reaching across personally and warmly.
The score for the Partitas
is remarkable among Bach's works in
a number of ways. First, it was engraved
by Bach, or at least under his close
supervision, so it is not unreasonable
to assume, as Valenti assumes, that
not only are there absolutely no mistakes,
but that every single note, spot, and
stroke is there for an expressive purpose.
It was Bach's first published work and
was subtitled "Opus 1." With
this work he addressed his public by
setting himself up among the immortals,
most directly comparing himself with
the deeply respected Johann Kuhnau (1660-1722)
- not to be confused with the much better
known Friedrich Kuhlau (1786-1832) -
his predecessor as kapellmeister at
Leipzig. No one at the time would have
believed the astonishing truth, that
by future generations Kuhnau's music
would be all but forgotten and he would
only be remembered as the man who preceded
Bach at Leipzig, a mere footnote to
Bach's career.
The partita
score, subtitled Clavierübung,*
"keyboard practice," is, among
other things, just that. Besides the
usual fugues** with their various kinds
of introductions, and brilliantly rhythmic
polyphonic structures erected on the
foundation of trite dance rhythms, there
are here found some of Bach's most beautiful dramatic arias,
with all the embellishments and ornaments written out, a priceless
example of Baroque taste that can, or should be, applied to our
performance of many other composers' works, composers
who did not leave us such fine examples.
The recording does
not, as you must surely expect, follow
strictly all the recommendations given
in the book, for Valenti was an artist
not a rhetorician. However upon reading
the discussion in the book, and then
listening to the performance, I had
a much richer and deeper musical experience
than any previous performance of the
partitas has given me, and I have known
these works well for a long time, and
even have played at them, on occasion,
on harpsichord, piano and clavichord.
It should be noted that the disks are
sold without program notes, and refer
the listener to the book for information.
The instrument used in this recording
has at least two ranks and two manuals,
and there are register changes between
sections, but the effect is always very
subtle, nothing like the extravagance
of tone color in his earlier recordings.
This matter of register
changes during harpsichord performances
has been debated bitterly and dogmatically.
At the time decades ago when the nascent
original instrument performance movement
showed signs of becoming a restrictive
force, violist and conductor Emmanuel
Vardi pointed out, largely to deaf ears,
that the neither the Renaissance nor
the Baroque were eras of smallness or
restraint, but of extravagance in every
manner and every detail, that whatever
was possible would be done. What an
absurd suggestion that the keyboardist
who played organ music with a kaleidoscopic
variety of tonalities, with at times
two assistants at the console pulling
and pushing stop levers for him would,
at the keyboard of the harpsichord,
don a monk's demeanor, dismiss his assistants, and forswear all
tonal variety! What was possible was done, and the confirmed
existence of a single example of a multi-manual, multi-rank
harpsichord from the baroque period - and in fact we have many
such - proves that then, as well as now,
everybody would want to play one and
everybody would want to hear them played.
Today it is not for
everyone to own a Steinway, but everybody
wants to. I know of no concert artist
who defends the exclusive performance
or recording of the Mendelssohn Songs
without Words on a small upright
piano because that was what most people
played them on in Victorian England.
Foot pedals on large harpsichords are
merely a modern solution to the "servant
problem", a sociological development
rather than an aesthetic one, allowing
a performer who couldn't afford to pay
two "pullers" to make the
same frequent changes in registration
as the more affluent artist could. The
classic great recordings of Sylvia Marlowe
and Fernando Valenti, restored and re-released
- by me if by no one else - will make
the case, and "authenticity"
will no longer be used as a brickbat
by the timidly incompetent to compensate
their lack of imagination and theatrical
instinct.
* A reasonable French translation of
klavierübung is études
de piano the substance of Chopin's
1833 Op. 10 publication at Leipzig,
which likewise asserted his maturity
as a serious composer.
** Bach wrote fugues the way an oak
tree produces acorns. One imagines it
was only by difficult and conscientious
effort that he could write anything
other than fugues, and most of these
"other" works are published
in the various volumes of klavierübung,
as though he were trying to answer publicly
those of his critics who derided him
for his skill at polyphony and his relative
lack of ability at simple consonant
monody. Indeed, what was once considered
to be Bach's greatest "tune,"
Bist du bei Mir, has recently
been shown to have been written by somebody
else, but Bach copied it into his notebooks,
perhaps as a challenge to himself to
write something at least as good, a
thing he never achieved.
Paul Shoemaker
Fernando Valenti (harpsichord) 
