Re: GG: Letter to Krastins (Jan. 3, 1963)

[jerry and judy <jerbidoc@zianet.com>]

>Dear fmns,
>
>I am now polishing my Japanese translation of
>the GG letter to V. Krastins dated January 3, 1963
>(English edition, pp.68-69).
>This is one of the most interesting letter where
>GG explains the necessity of playing Bach on the piano.
>
>Here, I have a question.  Does anyone explain the phrase
>"the plateau concept of Bach's music"?
>
>It appears in the fourth paragraph:
>"I suppose that the logical extension of my attitude
>would be to simply play the works on the harpsichord
>and yet I cannnot help feeling that in many ways the
>piano, with its range of sonority and the possibilities
>it provides for effects of registration which are
>quite within the plateau concept of Bach's music,
>                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>but for purely mechanical reasons are impossible
>on the harpsichord, is a perfectly sensible alternate;
>and in so many ways the most practical keyboard
>instrument for the performance of his music.  I do
>feel it requires a willingness to surrender what you
>might call the glamour qualities of the piano and this,
>it seems to me, happily is now being accepted more
>and more widely in the present generation of musicians."
>
>Does it simply describe Bach's music as a plateau,
>a large area of flat land, that is,
>a music which progresses without dynamics?

No, not likely, IMO.

>Does GG think all the Bach's music are like plateaus
>or some of them are like plateaus?


I think GG is saying that Bach's music is the plateau of the Baroque Era.
JSB, in his early output, quickly reached a state of high musical value and
continued producing works at that high level!, like climbing the side of a
plateau and remaining on top of it.  In this century, Bach's music has been
'conceived of' as one of the plateaus of musical history, coming down again
after JSB, until Mozart raised it once again.


>Does he think registration is effective for such music?

A registration is the combination of stops selected for performing a
particular ORGAN work, but on a two-manual harpsichord, the two rows or
registers of keys produce slightly different tone colors, because of the
different designed distances along the string at which it is plucked.  So
GG was using the word registration instead of the phrase for the process by
which, on a modern piano, a player can elicit different tone colors (I
think).

>Thank you in advance.
>
>Regards,
>
>Junichi
>
>****************************************
>  Junichi Miyazawa, Tokyo
>  walkingtune@bigfoot.com
>  (alias for: farnorth@mbc.sphere.ne.jp)
>****************************************
>  http://www.geocities.com/Vienna/3739