Re: GG: keyserlingk's variations

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

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.

- There are plenty of other similar variation sets that are more
clavichordistic and deserve attention: how about, for instance, Hassler's
30 variations on "Einmal ging ich spazieren"?  Or Buxtehude's 32
variations "La Capricciosa"?  The big "Walsingham" sets by Bull and Byrd
might also work well on clavichord.  Sure, the GV are wonderful, but so
are these less famous pieces.  They could be played on piano, too, if
pianists (in general, excepting GG) weren't so stuck on ideas that Bach is
as far back as they dare go...I'd far rather hear these (and Haydn and
Froberger and Frescobaldi) in a piano recital than Chopin and Beethoven
pieces which we've all heard so many times. 

Bradley Lehman ~ Harrisonburg VA, USA ~ 38.45716N+78.94565W
bpl@umich.edu ~ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/