I feel I must write the review, even if I am trying to resist the charms of internet conversation.
I'm not going to review each partita by each interpreter; it would be too long and too hermetic.
That said, these are the versions I am going to comment:
1. Walcha's old EMI recording
2. Karl Richter's Telefunken version
3. Leonhardt's first, DHM, version
4. Pinnock's first, Archiv, recording (which I am told is almost the same as the new set)
5. Leonhardt's second, EMI (now Veritas) version
6. Gilbert's HM set
7. Rousset's (L'Oiseau Lyre)
8. Paul Badura-Skoda's (Astrée)
9. Blandine Verlet's first (Philips) with a reference to the second version
10. Lars Ulrik Mortensen (Kontrapunkt)
11. Andreas Satier's (DHM)
12. Kenneth Weiss's (Satirino)
13. Masaaki Suzuki's (Bis)
14. Richard Troeber (Lyrichord).
As you can see, I consider, with one exception (Richard Trober, clavichord), only harpsichord versions. That is because, unlike the WTC or AoF, they are specifically written for that instrument: there are clearly notes which are meant to be held to provide added brilliance, many arpeggios, and the writing is, generally speaking, very 'harpsichordy'. Of course one can play it on the piano, but the arpeggios don't sound as crisp and the sound id usually somewhat muddled for my taste. Also, the use of a two-manual instrument, with the 4' (an octave above the unisons) generates a briskness of attack no piano can emulate. That doesn't mean I don't the piano versions: Lipatti (EMI) and Pires (DGG) gave us beautiful versions of the 1st, and Burmester (EMI) gave us a very good 6th. Alexis Weissenberg (EMI, again) also had a very good set. I just think the harpsichord suits these pieces better.
I can't possibly consider each one in depth. I'll just browse the general approach of each interpreter.
But first let me introduce the works themselves.
T H E S I X P A R T I T A S
A partita, or partia is the German equivalent (with some differences: partia originally meant a set of variations on a ground or air, but it soon acquired a different meaning) of the French Suite. Suite means 'sequence'; a sequence of dances, usually allemande, courante, sarabande and gigue (Froberger's order is usually different: allemande, courante, guigue, sarabande). Of course, during the 17th century, the suites were appropriated by the lutenists and the harpsichord players, and ceased to be suites for dancing and became suites for listening.
The partitas are the final blossoming of Bach's creations in that regard. He had previously composed a series of smaller scaled suites (more or less accurately grouped as the 'French suites', although they certainly are not very 'French' in style) and the great, if rather heteroclite 'English suites' (where 'English' really is a mystery).
The partitas are rather different from the two above mentioned collections. Chiefly, each partita has a rather unique character, being in every way different from the others. As a matter of fact, even if the Goldberg variations are said to reveal every aspect of Bach's keyboard style ââ'¬â€œ which I think is simply not true ââ'¬â€œ this would be right when applied to the Partitas. You have a fugue (6th), a French ouverture (4th) an accompanied ornate chorale (2nd), a bicinium (3rd), a true toccata (6th again), Sarabandes of all kinds (perhaps the most impressive 'French' Sarabande ever written ââ'¬â€œ again the 6th), the most impressive collection of allemandes, a truly Italian gigue (1st) and so on.
In this sense, the work is very instructive. But, chiefly, it contains some of the very best masterpieces of Bach ââ'¬â€œ for my taste, I would select the 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 6th as unsurpassable works of beauty and expression.
They all consist of an opening movement, followed by the usual bipartite allemande, courante, sarabande and gigue (in the 2nd suite a capriccio, which is really a powerful gigue); between the sarabande and the gigue Bach places 'agréments', minuets, gavottes and such frivolities; only with Bach they are really never frivolous, although I rather think one might as well just omit most of them when playing the pieces. Being bipartite, a reprise is called upon. This is a vexed question: the reprise was used as a memory aid, when the pieces were played only once. In certain cases, the first part is shorter than the second, and you could, for equilibrium sake, repeat the first but not the second part. Or else, you may choose to embellish the repeats. I personally think great care is to be exercised. In certain cases the repeats are out of the question (the great allemande in D major, for instance); in others (say the Sarabande in e minor) my natural tendency would be to repeat the first but never the second, because it is about twice as long as the first and, chiefly, it is so troubled, pathetic and final that repeating it just sounds unmusical. We will address this question when we consider the performances.
FIRST
The first suite (B flat major) is a kind of 'pastorale' work, rather dreamy and sweet. The sarabande is particularly beautiful, and reminds me of a Spring afternoon, a daydream under a beautifull tree). It is no wonder that it is the one that pianist use to play (after the great Lipatti version).
SECOND
The second one (mind you: c minor!) is a very somber and tragic work, beginning with a 'Sinfonia' with powerful dotted chords; this is followed by an anguished prayer (a right hand solo over two voices underneath, played in the second manual), which leads to a powerful fugato which stormingly leads to powerful dotted chords that end the Sinfonia in an answer to the beginning. This kind of moods ââ'¬â€œ sad, despairing, urgent, begging or defeated characterize the whole partita, even the lighter moments ââ'¬â€œ the aforementioned agréments. It ends with a powerful capriccio.
THIRD
The third (a minor) is a reflexive, introspective and slightly melancholy piece. I wonder why pianists do not seem too anxious to play it: it does sound wonderfully on the modern grand piano. The fantasia is a beautiful invention like piece. The sarabande is particularly striking, and it really is a mysterious piece: how do you play it? It doesn't sound like a sarabande at all. Some players (Walcha, for instance, played them as a tortured and sharp movement); but you can also play it in a reflexive mood (and, indeed, most people do just that). Even the Burlesca and the Scherzo (rather difficult to play) suggest an agitated performance; and the final gigue is extremely powerful (but Leonhardt's influence makes many performers play it as a quasi-lamento). So it is an enigmatic partita. You can play it crisply and powerfully or as a dramatic introspective lament; considering all the a minor pieces Bach wrote for the organ and harpsichord, I would suggest the most difficult of ways: a powerful introspective piece of music.
FOURTH
The fourth is one of the most radiantly beautiful of Bach's keyboard works. It opens with an astoundingly beautiful and radiant French ouvertoure; a very lyrical (and very long) allemande follows suit and really is one of the most magic bits of Bach. The adjective 'radiant' keeps coming to my mind. It reminds me of the beginning of Spring in Portugal, when bright white clouds rush by against a very deep blue sky, nature is at its greenest and flowers begin to blossom everywhere. It is crisp, magic, astoundingly beautiful. To my mind, no piano can ever equal the sound of a sweetly ringing harpsichord here. The entire partita is 'radiant' ââ'¬â€œ that adjective again. The bright and light courante, the exquisitely beautiful sarabande (in which the harpsichord really dictates the tempo: you have to wait until the sound extinguishes [bars 2 and 30, the high a, and bar 16, the high e] before you carry on with the semiquavers). The work ends with a very vivacious gigue, a kind of 'envoy', that brings you down to earth and puts a solid and boisterous end to the reverie.
FIFTH
Partita 5 is a perfect example of Bach's use of G major: brilliant, gay (in the old meaning of the word), fast and dazzling. It begins with a Praeambulum, where fast strongly diatonic semiquavers alternate with unexpected crisp chords. The allemande is more dreamy, but still very sunny (it is also very difficult to play the left hand legato with old fingering technique, which perhaps suggests that it was a brisker piece than the interpretation of most modern day players would suggest). The courante is a happy, diatonically flowing piece. The Sarabande is a very relaxed and sensuous piece, which might be played 'languissament', as Couperin had it for one of his pieces. The minuet that follow it is a precious and very easy to play piece, but the following passepied is ravishing. It all ends with a very capricious and somersaulting gigue, a fitting end for this sunny partita.
SIXTH
Now for the last and, to my mind, by far the most impressive of all partitas (e minor). It begins with a somewhat buxtehudean style toccata, by the fugue that follows is a typical Bach fugue: a powerful, three voiced one, which you might consider playing fast and without ever releasing the tension, even when it modulates to major: the true release comes at the end, with the return of the toccata, quite unabashedly in stylus fantasticus (very free and dramatic) and with a terrible sense of fury and darkness. The following allemanda is dramatic, powerful, deeply poignant and ends terribly, with an ascending and then a downward sweep of pointed crochets, couched in an important rhythmic semiquaver, two demi semiquavers pattern (more on this latter). The courante is a dialog of an offbeat treble over a more or less regular flow of triplets on the bass (3/8), sometimes with the strong beat omitted, the whole being a rather unsettling result. There follows an air, which musicological (and musical) reasons indicate should played after the Sarabande. The Sarabande itself is the pinnacle of the whole partita: I cannot find, in all the repertoire for the harpsichord, such a tormented, anguished, tortured and expressive piece (perhaps Froberger's Tombeau of Monsieur Blancheroche). I would play it with the full resources of the harpsichord (8+8+4, that is, the three sets of strings) and omitting the second repeat. Again, the important paam, papapam rhythm makes its appearance, but the piece grows more and more unstructured, and rhythmical freedom is more and more required. It is just like a nightmare, the most pathetic, expressive and ominously anguished harpsichord piece I know. After this, the two gallanterien may be played as a sort of relief, but I would just jump to the final gigue. Now there is a very silly debate going on as to how the rhythmical rendering of the notes should be. The time signature is a strange variation of the allabreve time signature: ¢. It is printed as Ø, but with a vertical slash. No one really knows what that means. And many people chose to interpret it as meaning that the pa-paam, pa-paam, should be played paraaam, paraaam, that is, triple time. This rendering (which is NOT written) forces one to play the above mentioned and ever present parapa parapa pam (which is actually written) as pararararararam, that is, you do without rhythmic inequality and just play triplets. Now, Ø probably means that you just play not twice as fast as is written (the meaning of ¢), but three times as fast. Which is entirely in keeping with the nature of the piece and presents a fitting ending to this tormented and somber partita. Played as written, the effect if flabbergasting: You have a defiantly aggressive, chromatic and dissonant theme which just blows you away. The second section presents the inversion (what goes up now goes down and vice-versa) of the theme, but the 'straight' theme reasserts itself in the end, towering over the whole drama in an unequivocal victory.
So those are the partitas. Lets now examine the versions. The next post will do just that.
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