Bach Nostalghia
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
Original works and transcriptions
Francesco Piemontesi (piano)
rec. December 2019, Jesus-Christus-Kirche, Berlin, Germany
Reviewed as downloaded in 16/44.1 PCM from press preview
PENTATONE PTC5186846
[52:14]
My spell checker kept trying to correct the title of this album into
“Nostalgia”. But rest assured that the title as it appears in the heading
is correct, and refers to Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky’s 1983 film of
the same name, which contains the memorable line, “Poetry is
untranslatable, like the whole of art.” (Yes, I realize that perhaps
there’s some irony in quoting that line in English translation!) The title
is Piemontesi’s idea, and perhaps suggests a touch of irony, as Bach’s
original compositions are “translated” in various ways to the idiom of the
piano.
Decades ago, I remember reading a claim from a HIP-apologist who
asserted
that the very deed of playing Bach on the piano, even without the textual
modifications of a Liszt or a Busoni, constituted in itself an act of
transcription, since Bach never could, he assured us, have conceived of the
sound of a modern grand piano. But that assertion, while it may have some
truth to it, doesn’t seem very important to me, in light of Bach’s own
transcriptions of his own and other composers’ music, where a concerto for
two violins might become a concerto for two keyboards/harpsichords, or a
Marcello Oboe Concerto might become a work for a single keyboard. It seems
clear that Bach did not conceive of his compositional ideas (or those of
other composers) as strongly wedded to a particular instrumental color or
capability.
Half of the works on this album were originally composed for organ,
beginning with the first track, the Prelude and Fugue in E-flat major
(popularly known as the “St. Anne’s Fugue”). Piemontesi has chosen to split
the prelude from the fugue, a practice which the booklet note writer, Mark
Berry, implies to be reasonable, even though the vast majority of
keyboardists (both pianists and organists) do not make this kind of
separation. He writes: “Though we consider prelude and fugue to form a
single work, it is not clear that Bach did.” And he’s right. In the first
published edition of the Klavierübung III (of which this work forms a
part), the prelude was printed at the beginning of the volume, while the
fugue was printed at the end, with some chorale preludes and the Four Duets
separating them. Given this fact, Piemontesi is certainly within his rights
to separate the two portions of the work this way, although I’m so used to
the “single work” idea of it, that it may take me some time to get used to
Piemontesi’s conception of the form. In general, it’s a good performance,
with the pianist making good use of his fine sounding instrument, but
there’s one bothersome blemish to the performance, at least for me, and
that’s Piemontesi’s decision to play the notes printed in the reduced-size
typeface (ie. like grace notes) on the beat, rather than
before the beat. What? Everyone has known for more than half a
century that Bach wanted his ornaments played on the beat, but I
question whether Busoni wanted that type of execution. Just within Busoni’s
placement and layout of the chords, the on the beat execution
often sounds weak and disrupts the continuing power of the phrase in a way
that a before the beat execution would not. That’s just my opinion
of course.
The two chorale preludes which follow are again well played, but likewise
contain aspects which I’m a bit bothered by. For instance, in “Wachet auf,
ruft uns die Stimme”, Piemontesi often clips off the last note of the many
short slurs in the piece rather abruptly, which to my mind is not in
keeping with Busoni’s request for “simple expression and naive piety”. In a
way, I think I can see what Piemontesi’s idea is: by clipping that last
note of many of the slurs, he wants to reduce its sound so that it’s less
likely to interfere with the chorale melody, once the two ideas appear in
counterpoint. I appreciate his thinking, but I’m not convinced by it, and
I’ve heard other performances which avoid this kind of clipping at the end
of the slur and which nevertheless bring out the chorale melody without a
problem. In addition, I’m not sure just what edition of the music
Piemontesi is using. I’ve got the old Edition Breitkopf score, and, in some
spots, I’m not sure what I’m seeing vs. what I’m hearing — and I’m hearing
some extra filling in the middle voices that’s absent from the score as I
see it. Of course, this could be something added or improvised by
Piemontesi himself, but I wish the booklet notes had been more explicit as
to just what the pianist is doing here, or what edition he was using.
I apologize for continuing to find fault with Piemontesi’s generally worthy
playing, but there is more for me to question in his performance of the
Italian Concerto — especially in the slow movement, which I find
rhythmically wayward in places. I’m thinking of the alternation in strict
sixteenth-note motion between the two hands (for instance, in bar 30).
Instead of the even sixteenth-note pulses, which produce a hushed and
calming effect, we hear a kind of triplet rhythm, with the longer notes of
the ersatz triplet occurring in the left hand and the shorter right-hand
notes falling into them in a kind of befuddled way. Why would he play this
bar (and similar sections) like this? He can’t be trying to impose inégales
here (a practice generally applied to notes moving in stepwise motion),
because the rhythm is applied over two different voices, and, far from
being stepwise in motion, the succeeding notes are sometimes more than two
octaves apart! I just can’t understand what he’s thinking here, and I feel
certain that listeners who become aware of Piemontesi’s rhythmic
instability here will feel as unhappy with it as I do, even though I’m
willing to agree that it seemingly sounds deliberate, rather than occurring
as a result of not paying attention.
In the Wilhelm Kempff transcription of the Siciliano from the G-minor
Sonata, Piemontesi follows the indicated articulation exactly (articulation
indicated by Kempff that is!). It’s a beautiful work in a very accomplished
performance. Maximilian Schnaus’s transcription of “Kommst du nun, Jesu,
vom Himmel herunter” spends a lot of its time in the upper regions of the
keyboard, but otherwise seems a worthy continuation of the Busoni and
Kempff traditions. Its lightness and high “center of gravity” provide a
good contrast with most of the other music on this album. In addition, the
Schnaus transcription ends in the exact region of the keyboard where the
Busoni Toccata begins, and I applaud Piemontesi for his clever
juxtaposition of the two works. (I confess that I hadn’t heard the Busoni
Toccata in almost 50 years!)
Although I reviewed the two-channel CD-quality file (16/44.1 PCM), this
release is also available at the Pentatone site as a download in
two-channel and surround with 24-bit resolution. It seems that Pentatone is
no longer exclusively in the DSD camp these days.
There’s some admirable playing on this album, but there’s also a kind of
“death by a thousand tiny cuts” aspect of the interpretation and playing
which prevents an unreserved recommendation.
Chris Salocks
Contents:
Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750)
(transcr. Ferruccio BUSONI):
Prelude and Fugue in E-flat major, BWV 552: Prelude [8:32]
Nun komm der Heiden Heiland, BWV 659 [4:42]
Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme, BWV 645 [4:03]
Johann Sebastian BACH
Italian Concerto, BWV 971:
Allegro [4:00]
Andante [4:16]
Presto [3:54]
Johann Sebastian BACH (transcr. Wilhelm KEMPFF)
Flute Sonata in E-flat major, BWV 1031: Siciliano [3:16]
Johann Sebastian BACH (transcr. Maximilian SCHNAUS)
Kommst du nun, Jesu, vom Himmel herunter, BWV 650 [3:07]
Ferruccio BUSONI
(1866-1924)
Toccata, K.287 [9:16]
Johann Sebastian BACH (transcr. BUSONI
)
Prelude and Fugue in E-flat major, BWV 552: Fugue [7:00]
