Re: GG: keyserlingk's variations

["David B. Klein" <dklein@microtec.net>]

At 01:19 PM 4/9/98 -0400, Bradley P Lehman wrote:
>On 9 Apr 1998, David B. Klein wrote:
>
>> Is anyone aware of a good recording of the Goldbergs played on a
>> clavichord? 
>
>Not that I know of, and it's unlikely that there will be one, foreseeably. 
>(As nice as the result could be.) That's not to say there definitely isn't
>one, though. 
>
>There are plenty of reasons why it's unlikely:
>
>- Clavichords are notoriously difficult to record, in any
>repertoire...mostly from their quietness.  I asked an experienced producer
>about it (suggesting that if an opportunity arose I'd like to do an Art of
>Fugue on clavichord sometime), and he said he'd want no part of a
>clavichord recording from his earlier work trying to record them.  There's
>also been a considerable amount of discussion of this topic on hpschd-l
>recently; see the archives at http://albany.edu/~hpschd-l/
>
>- The GV is written for two-manual harpsichord; many spots are notoriously
>difficult to pull off with both hands scrunched onto a single keyboard
>during the crossings, just getting the notes (let alone having contrasting
>tone colors).  On piano there's much more leeway for arm motion and
>physical contortions which wouldn't work on the clavichord, because it
>requires a very different type of finger control.  Similarly, the
>harpsichord lets one get away with more unevenness of touch than the
>clavichord does; the clavichord is much more demanding on one's fingering. 
>So the practical options would seem to be: use two clavichords together,
>or multi-track it.  (Or just play it on harpsichord, where it belongs...is
>easiest and sounds best!)
>
>- Stylistically, it seems to be a much more "public" showy piece than
>would really suit the clavichord's intimacy.  Some of the grander parts
>(16, 28, 29, and the cross-hand variations) would simply sound silly on
>clavichord.  Sure, the Aria and some of the variations would sound fine
>(and the Aria was probably played on clavichord anyway when it was lying
>around the house and in the Bach family notebook), so maybe an abridged
>version would be OK. 
>
>- GV on clavichord would be a specialty interest at best, so getting
>funding for such a project would be difficult.  Yes, it's been done on
>accordions, organ, synthesizers, strings, piano, guitars, etc., but those
>are all transcriptions...not especially marketable (except piano) as
>anything but novelties.  There's so much other music that the clavichord
>is better suited for, not yet recorded, that serious players will tend to
>work on that stuff first.

Bradley,

Thank you for that very authoritative answer. I guess it's not likely to
happen. Now how about the Mozart Rondo in A minor on organ?

David Klein