GG Re: Bach performance

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

On Sat, 31 Aug 1996, Eugene Selig wrote:

> Ivo Pogorelich says he is a great admirer of GG, and you will find his 
> Bach reflects his acceptance of GG's approach. IP does not attempt to 
> "experiment" in GG fashion, but he plays cleanly, with minimum pedal, to 
> outline voices, a la GG's phenomenal gift.

Of all the piano recordings of Bach I've heard, I can *least* tolerate
listening to Pogorelich's rending of two English suites.  (Except perhaps
Kempff's, which is even more boring.) Note that I said "rending," not
"rendering" or "rendition."  Pogorelich drives the phrases so hard and
mechanically, with so little sense of gracefulness, that there's no music
left in it.  IMHO.  It's a pity, because I enjoy Pogorelich's playing in
Ravel, Liszt, Prokofiev, and Schumann. 

> Beware of the Czerny edition of Bach. It reflects a 19th century 
> prospective, and as such became a Romantic model which musicologists have 
> repudiated in the 20th century. It does the same kind of violence to the 
> Baroque expression as Busoni's and Liszt's transcriptions of Bach organ 
> works, or Stokowski's orchestral transcriptions. GG would have called 
> it music for people who really hate Bach. 

Which musicologists, specifically?  I'm one, and I think the Czerny edition
of Bach is fascinating.  The musical ideas are interesting, and at least some
of it is explicitly a record of the way Czerny remembers Beethoven playing
Bach.  The only thing it contradicts is 20th century positivism; it doesn't
contradict *music*.  Some would say that Ravel's orchestration of
Mussorgsky's "Pictures" does too much violence to the original, because it
makes it sound too French.  Where is the line drawn?  At what people are told
they should enjoy?  Why is Mussorgsky-Ravel OK, while Bach-Busoni or
Bach-Czerny are not?  How about the way Glenn Gould played Handel on the
harpsichord: surely more Gould than either Handel or harpsichord?  Or those
treacly Karajanesque half-speed renditions of Pachelbel's "Canon," with
spurious pizzicato viola parts and no gigue?  Or the "Albinoni" Adagio made
grotesque by Giazotto?  Or the "Boccherini" cello concerto shoveled together
by Gruetzmacher?  Any or all of those might be "wrong" in some puritanical
mindset, but some people still enjoy them on occasion. 

Ever heard the Mozart sonatas which Grieg added a second piano to?  One
player plays Mozart as written, while the other plays Grieg, and the result
is definitely Grieg.  There are also piano parts by Schumann for the Paganini
caprices and for Bach's violin pieces.  This hybrid stuff is a record of the
aesthetics of its own time.  It can be enjoyed or studied on its own terms. 
(What exactly is a "Romantic model," and why is it to be disdained or
repudiated?  Says who?)

When I play Bach on the harpsichord, I never use the Czerny edition.  But for
Bach on a c1800 piano, it might be entirely valid as an approach.  A
harpsichord and an early piano and a modern Steinway are three entirely
different instruments, and if you play music written for one on a different
one, it's automatically a transcription anyway.  (The same could also be said
for the different styles of harpsichords, and the different styles of early
pianos.  Music written for a late 18th-century French double can sound awful
on a 17th-century Italian single, and vice versa.)

P.S. Eugene, I'm having trouble reconciling the logic of the paragraph above
where you suggest that GG would have said those those transcriptions were for
people who hate Bach.  Wasn't GG one of the most adulatory Stokowski fans who
ever lived? 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Bradley Lehman, bpl@umich.edu       http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/