Bach's violin partitas

It was me who made the "Jewish folksy attitude" comment. I was not a comment made of Bach, but a comment made of Oscar Shumsky's playing, which is my favourite recording of the sonatas and partitas. To me his playing has a hint, just a hint, of Klezmer style in his playing.

 

Oh, OK. I never listened to Klezmer. I'm sorry I got it wrong. My excuse being that I have the flu...

 

Yesterday I listened to an old favourite: Milstein's version. I must say it really is in a class of its own... From all the 'hip' I remember, and unless my listening was seriously hampered by the jumps, I would –surprisingly– put Matthews on top.

In fact, may I bother you to write your opinion on Milstein's version (the DGG one)? I'm asking you this because I fully understand that younger people do not like it: it's perhaps too intense, too emotionally charged, emotion being a kind of fury.

It certainly is totally in contrast with the more modern (and perhaps very English) laid back attitude.

 

I do not know what it is, and was about to ask jsjwilson once more, when he answered the question. Though I can not say, that I feel well-lnformed, as I do not know the Klezmer style.

 

Milstein S+P

Dear Rodrigo

You prompted even me to relisten to Milsteins version too. I found out, that my taste has changed considerably during the intervening maybe four years, because now I do not like his style. His use of dynamics, his (in between) strange articulation, his exaggerated chronic vibrato which is unbearable and which only slightly masks his questionable intonation, his lacking knowledge about ornamentation et.c. And he misses IMO often the character of the music, eager as he is to impose his own sentiments upon the listener instead of searching the inner affects of the different movements. And to add insult to injury the sound of his instrument is wiry, bordering the unlistenable.

For comparison I listened also to the S + P by Ruggero Ricci and Ida Händel.

Ricci has got a much safer intonation and a less annoying vibrato, plays marginally slower and sounds better. He hits the singing character of many of the slow movenments better.

Händel on the other hand was a surprise. To quote the booklet:

"She finds in the music a stillness, an inner calm, a serenity, that few artists, whose lives are often at the centre of a maelstrom, can achieve, let alone project to others."

This is very well put. Add to this that her tempi are moderate, allowing time for reflection, her intonation is impeccable and the sound of her violin very beautiful. All in all the general impression of Händels playing is not far from Matthews' playing, if we ignore the differences between non-HIP and HIP. So it is essentially very recommendable.

Still my preferred non-HIP interpretations of these works are Lautenbachers second recording and Tetzlaff's first recording.

Regards,

 

I have been coming here often to check if you answered (and other members, of course, but I know you are enamoured with the Sonatas & Partitas).

I was afraid you would say something of the sort. Yes, Milstein's sound is very wiry; yes his intonation is sometimes unstable, but I think that is because he treats whole sentences was almost words, and I like that. Yes, the vibrato is annoying, but then Grummiaux's is even worse. It is true that it is a very personal view: Milstein's own, almost brutal and stalinist (and yet he was a Jew: proof positive that there is no 'Jewish' way of playing).

But I understand fully what you say even if in spite of the shortcomings I like the records.

Today I had the possibility of listening to Ingrid Matthews on the car; while the sound quality is not the same as at home (far from it) I liked the recordings very much. I sometimes question all the fuss about connected and unconnected notes, but in spite of that she gets the structure (as I see it) right and even the 3rd fugue is not heavy. Her violin has the most wonderful sound, as if she had a tad too much resin on the bow – a very bright and grainy sound, which I like.

I am now listening to Szeryng's: very beautiful, even if a little rose coloured and a silky sound which I don't necessarily like. Grummiaux I listened to before, but I got fed up, in spite of the very beautiful Chaconne. His fugues are heavy and boring.

The Sonatas and Partitas have always fascinated me. Contrary to the 'cello suites, which are very easy to understand, the S&P are really difficult music. I have a lot of versions (not as many as you, I think) and every time there is something that is not quite right.

I agree about the Tetzlaff and the Lautenbacher. I don't know Ricci's version, and did not know that Ida Händel had recorded the S&P.

I find I am now almost incapable of being really critic of musicians. Playing well is so hard and most of the artists do it so well and are so obviously convinced that the way they play is the correct one, that I cannot bring myself to say discourteous things about almost any record...

 

Have to be cautious with the money recently :student:, so I dunno (yet?) about Mullova, but I agree entirely about Matthews. One of my favourites, along with François Fernandez (label: Flora), who benefits from a warmer sound.

 

Same here .... the older I get.
:cry:

 

Just a month ago you were growing more and more annoyed by piano renderings of Bach.

The world changes so fast nowadays...

At this pace you will soon find that Glen Gould's Bach is marvellous.

 

Nope.
That was mainly about the instrument, if I guessed right.
Or was Rodrigo only referring to his mildness towards musicians who really respect the score?

In a certain way it is .... but why play the piano like it is some kind of a harpsichord, whilst there's a chance to play the instrument itself?

 

As you may know, Gould recorded four Händel suites on a modern harpsichord. The result evokes no enthusiasm as to his ability to interprete Bach on this instrument, and fortunately he did not try.

 

Maybe I once knew, and then forgot.

Anyway: I have some Gould/Bach, but not all of them (by far). Among them a disc with the Inventionen/Sinfonien, on which recording he used a pre-war Steinway that no other professional pianist would use and which was (p)repared to sound like a harpsichord. Well, it sounded awful! (The 'notorious' hickup recording.)
But maybe that's how Gould thought a harpsichord did sound like?

 

I have not heard any of Szeryng's two sets. He was not that good in the violin-harpsichord sonata set with Walcha, so my interest for him has not become stimulated. Grumiaux I haven't listened to for many years. To day I would probably find even him too romantic.

IMO there is a lot of good versions, which are well integrated and convincing in their own right. I can mention Christian Tetzlaff and Susanne Lautenbacher again and add Ingrid Matthews and Viktoria Mullova and a lot of others e.g. Salvatore Accardo, Ida Händel, Karl Suske, Christiane Edinger, Ilya Kaler, John Holloway, Rachel Podger and Sigiswald Kuijken II, - you name them.

The artistic freedom must have a limit IMO, if an artist wants to be taken seriously nowadays. Of course we should admire an artist's technical powers, but it is bad style to play Bach with heavy vibrato in order to make his music eatable to listeners who prefer late romantic music.

 

Gould / Bach

I had some Gould/Bach on LP (WTC I & II, Partitas, English suites), but I did not feel compelled to bring them with me into the CD age. :gould:

 

First time I heard the complete solo works for violin was with Szeryng's 2cd-set of DG. I thought his playing was rather 'stubborn', but I liked it and still do. If I'm not mistaken I own only 2 recordings with non-baroque instrument performers, Szeryng and Zehetmaier. They're totally different, but I think they're both good up to very good.
Oops, forgot about a Lautenbacher set, of which I disliked the sharp recording sound, I'm sorry to say. It made it very difficult for me to listen to the performances carefully.

With Bach, in general, it seems I can 'accept' more various interpretations when his instrumental works are concerned. With vocal works I've always been far more 'critical', from childhood on. I think that the lyrics and the meaning of those texts play an important role in that. Once I was a very religious boy, and apparantly I still want to listen to singers who at least can make me believe that they really believe in those lyrics.

 

In the sonatas for violin and harpsichord with Walcha one rather gets the feeling, that Szeryng has not considered the music sufficiently in detail, contrasting strongly with Walcha's uncompromising interpretation. But your words make me curious, so I put the S + P on my wishlist.

I suppose that we are not talking about the first Lautenbacher set for Beyer Records, but the second Lautenbacher set for Vox rereleased by Membran on three CDs. The Vox release is far superior to the Membran set, the sound being fuller and not so sharp.

Essentially I feel in the same way, but this makes me on the other hand more tolerant to performances of Bach's sacred music, the issue of period/non period being less important here, than in his instrumental music. F.i. I find Fritz Werners recordings much more expressive and representative of the text than Suzuki's more academic and emotionally detached interpretations. But often I am liable to listen just to the music, as when I listen to Leusink.

 

This quality I recognize, but I experience it mostly with Bach's non-vocal works.
Probably caused by the fact that I began listening to Bach's vocal works way before all other classical music, at a certain point I permitted myself to have an 'opinion' about the performances.

 

On the other hand some Bach's keyboard concertos and violin concertos are the same concertos, just the lead instrument is different. That is just one example how Bach recycled his music.

Is it annoying to play a keyboard concerto as a violin concerto or vice versa if Bach himself did so?
Is it annoying to play a keyboard concerto with piano instead of harpsichord? Bach himself thought it is OK to play it with violin which certainly differs more from harpsichord than piano..

If Bach himself did not "respect the score" why musicians should?

 

I hear you.
But this discussion is not exactly what I meant. If you want to know what Rodrigo's point is/was: you'll have to ask him. All we remember is that somewhere he stated that in Bach the piano was getting more annoying to him during the years.

But IMHO such isn't necessarily an opinion, ruled by strict HIP-thinking, or what Bach would have thought of something. I never met this guy called JS, and he never knew a Steinway, so I really can't say anything about his thoughts concerning the use of an instrument that he never knew himself.

If someone wants to play a saxophone concerto on a Krummhorn or even on a piano, he/she should do that. No problem to me. I even might like it better. But to me, personally, the piano doesn't work that well in Bach's music. The sound is just too 'broad' to me. Which doesn't mean that I never listen to Bach on the piano. I even try to play some Menuetto's, Musettes and Bourrées myself, on my terrible instrument at home.

When I talked about 'respecting the score' I was referring to a serious attempt to make music out of it, with at least some serious knowledge of the 'baroque' background (whatever that is, scholars seem to differ in their opinion ). But I wasn't thinking of making use of the historical 'correct' instrument.

Apart from that, I don't think that rebuilding old piano's to make them somehow sound like harpsichords can be taken seriously. Mengelberg did that to use piano's in the basso continuo, but in his time there weren't that many decent harpsichords. Although I think that, had he heard one, he still would have detested it.

But it's different with Gould's recording of the Inventionen. If he wanted the sound of a harpsichord, my suggestion would have been: play one. From the sixties on, there was a growing interest in this instrument, which resulted in some good sounding ones.

Now Gould was playing this nice music on some kind of a 'hickup' piano. To be honest: it makes me laugh.
I prefer his renderings of f.i. the Goldbergs, and take them more seriously .... if only he would have respected more repeats! But that's mainly because I like the composition that much.

 

If Gould's Inventions make you laugh they are good.
To quote the latest Batman movie: WHY SO SERIOUS ?