Re: GGs of today, GG's Haendel

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

On Thu, 11 Jun 1998, Marcos Maffei wrote:

(...)
> Ivo Pogorelich:
> First of all, concerning non-GG Bach played on the piano, his English
> Suites 2 & 3 (BWV 807 & 808; DGG 415 480-2; 1986) were, and still are,
> the most striking and even exciting Bach's keyboard music recording that
> I've heard since... well, GG's. The sheer intensity of his playing, the
> forward-driven momentum of the preludes, the deeply felt pace of the
> sarabandes, and so on, makes it for me one of the best Bach piano
> records ever. (along, naturally, with GG's two Goldbergs - my heart is
> forever divided between both - his tocattas, most of his WTC, and the
> recently released, and nothing less than breathtaking, fugues of Art of
> Fugue on piano...). I've heard, and liked, many other pianists playing
> Bach (Nikolayevna, Brendel, Schiff, S. Richter, C. Katsaris); none,
> however, has such a stunning effect as this one by Pogorelich. 

It's interesting that you endorse this one so enthusiastically.  In other
repertoire I'm a Pogorelich fan.  But I HATE his English Suites disc. 
I'll agree with you that the effect is stunning: I think it's stunningly
far off track, one of the worst Bach piano records ever (to me at least). 
His physical execution of the music is clean enough (one swift chop to the
neck...), he gets all the notes in the correct order, but I think his
interpretation is entirely misguided.  Bach is not the Schumann Toccata. 

You mentioned the forward-driving momentum of the preludes...it sounds to
me like just a head-down dash for the finish line without much sensitivity
to phrasing, harmonic direction, or breathing.  Reminds me of the worst of
the (typically eastern-European) orchestral performance styles of baroque
music in the 1950's-60's: Bach as a smooth machine zooming along, merely a
long string of equally-weighted notes that ultimately mean nothing. 
Ultimately, except for the general breathlessness, I find the preludes
boring and one-dimensional played in this manner.  Interpretively it
sounds like the "power steering" approach: no sensitivity to the road
conditions, just take all the curves as rapidly and smoothly as possible. 
"Get on the Autobahn, turn on cruise control, get to the destination,
ignore all scenery as irrelevant."

You also mentioned the sarabandes...why, oh why, does he insert extra
beats into the meter?!  These pieces are dances with a clear three per
bar.  Try counting along with Pogorelich's performance of the a-minor
sarabande...in a number of places he stretches the first beat so long that
it sounds as if he's playing four beats in the bar.  To me this makes it
sound like "no pace to the sarabandes," a lack of a sense of rhythm.  Just
a bunch of notes wandering along without much direction or clear
organization.  Whenever I listen to this recording and get to this point,
I can't avoid having a physical reaction where my body says, "Get ON with
it!  Get past the first beat!  Learn how to read note values!!" 
(Technically, the trouble is that at the *beginning* of a note that is
going to be stretched, he gives no indication that he is going to do
something special to it...the note simply begins normally but goes on too
long beyond its expected end.  There are ways to stretch notes this long
and make them convincing: but it's done in the placement of the beginning
of the note.  That's what conveys a clear sense of rhythm, which is
distinct from merely keeping a steady beat.) 

Overall, I think these performances of the suites don't sound spontaneous
enough: they come across to me as grim and deadly serious, with no sense
of fun.  He doesn't do anything to make the repeats interesting; in his
interpretation, it seems they have no purpose other than making the piece
twice as long.  It seems he doesn't understand the principle of "doubles," 
either, because they don't sound like improvised ornamentations but are
merely plowed through (with repeats) without much clear projection that
this is an elaboration of the previous section....  As for gracefulness in
the courantes and gigues, it's not in these performances: like the
preludes, these merely burn along without much grouping of the phrases. 
One big blur of loud and fast notes, inattentive to musical content.  I'd
rather go watch a freight train go by, because at least they wobble a bit
and the cars sometimes have different colors.

One thing is clear from our disagreement, at least: this disc makes an
intense impression either way, favorably or negatively!  Otherwise I
wouldn't have taken the time to write about these performances which I can
hardly bear to listen to.  I think Pogorelich's intensity is focused on
musical principles that have little to do with Bach. 

GG's performances, by contrast, at least illustrate an understanding of
how the notes are organized.  And he gives an impression that he wants the
listener to understand it, too.  The liberty he takes (sometimes pretty
odd) on top of that basic security makes the performances fun to listen
to: I get a sense of GG and Bach each stepping out of a rigid mold and
filling in the structure with interesting quirks.  The surface or
foreground is fascinating in detail; the middleground of phrasing is
clearly recognizable; and the background of form is solid and natural.  In
Pogorelich's Bach performances, the foreground is mass-produced as if by
machine; the middleground is either hazily random or mechanically rigid
(in either case showing no clear differentiation of function); and the
background seems to be from a different basic aesthetic world.  That's why
I have difficulty as listener plugging myself into them at some level
where they can be meaningful to me.

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