RE: GG: Goldbergs on synthesizer; non-homogeneous fingering

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

On Mon, 28 Jul 1997, R Johansen wrote:

> I find it very peculiar that a man who coupled the Goldbergs (performed on
> the piano) with the 14 canons on the Goldberg theme performed on a
> _synthesizer_ can muster the courage to criticize anyone for
> "overestimat[ing] Bach's 'indifference about instruments'". Mr. Takahashi's
> recording was made in 1976, which was well before any decent-sounding
> synthesizer, and his synth work wasn't quite W. Carlos standard... It is
> awful!

I haven't heard this particular Takahashi album, but I've been favorably
impressed with everything else of his I've heard, especially his recording
of John Cage's "Sonatas and Interludes for Prepared Piano." 

My main reason for writing today is to mention a different recording of
the Goldberg Variations themselves (not the canons) on synthesizer.  It
was issued more than five years ago with the unfortunate and misleading
title "New Age Bach."  It's not new-agey at all, but instead a perceptive,
creative, entertaining performance of the Goldbergs, with quite a bit of
tasteful variety, and not in Carlos or Tomita style, either.  (Wish I
could remember the performer's name, but I can't think of it at the
moment...my copy is at home.  I think it was Jeffrey something.) I don't
know if it's still in print or not.  It was on Musicmasters (I think) and
maybe also Musical Heritage Society labels. 

Several years ago I lent it to a friend (another professional
harpsichordist) who has played and taught the GV's, and who has heard
dozens of different recordings.  He gave it back saying it was the best
performance he's ever heard on any instrument, and he had rushed out to
get his own copy. 

-----

Junichi's comment about Takahashi:

> (By the way, Takahashi is now seeking for non-homogeneous 
> fingering on the keyboard to revive the
> character of each finger, which makes music a "physical" achievement.)

This seems to me to be a worthy goal.  It's certainly a part of essential
harpsichord, organ, and clavichord technique in much of the repertoire: in
numerous treatises and traditions, keyboard players were instructed as to
which fingers are "good" and "bad" and to be used on strong or weak notes
in the phrases.  It changed from era to era and country to country, so the
well-informed performer needs a variety of techniques to deal with the
different types of music.  

One chooses a fingering to get a specific sound, in addition to historical
"correctness." For example, typically in Elizabethan music such as that of
the Fitzwilliam Virginal Book I would play an ascending RH scale
3-4-3-4-3-4-3-4 with 3 being the strong finger.  If the passage is
especially fast, I might choose 1-2-3-4-3-4-3-4.  In fast Italianate music
I might choose 1-2-3-4-1-2-3-4, with the second 1 being a quick shift of
the whole hand, not a passing-under of the thumb, and because I *want* a
natural accent on each group of four notes.  1-2-3-1-2-3-4-5 (modern piano
fingering, with an attempt to make everything equal) gives the wrong
sound.  When I quit piano in favor of the other three instruments above, I
had to unlearn those pianistic habits *and* unlearn the pianistic
aesthetic...it's definitely worth the change! 

Similarly, string and wind treatises emphasized the essential variety
note-to-note from bowing and tongueing techniques.  Not only the
articulation, but the length and strength of notes didn't have to be
equal, and the music is far more vital if the notes *aren't* "created
equal."  It's a vital part of the aesthetic, especially in pre-Bach
repertoire but also including Bach.  The notes are like the syllables of
speech: always different one from the other, and combined into words,
sentences, and paragraphs.  Musical rhetoric. 

The modern tendency to smooth things out on almost all instruments (all
fingers equal in strength, equal up-bow and down-bow, constant vibrato,
even tongueings, equal-sized half steps, etc., etc.) does a disservice to
music which was written with the understanding that strong and weak notes
are to be celebrated for their natural differences (rather than
steamrolled out with no distinction). 

So Takahashi's goal here seems to me to be very far from anything Gould
ever achieved or tried to achieve.  GG sought to minimize or even remove
altogether the effect of any physical playing technique, with its inherent
natural differences that occur note-to-note.  He tried to give us
mentally-constructed performances, not tied to realization on any specific
instrument.  (Remember, he got on his own case for having recorded the
fifth Bach partita too pianistically, with too many "hairpins."  And he
claimed to have *never* written a fingering into any of his scores.) 

GG's musicality was completely modern in that sense of wanting equality of
notes as a mental aesthetic goal.  Whether that works convincingly is a
separate question...I think his playing was _sui generis_ enough that it
drew the attention elsewhere, away from any traditions.  It has to be
judged on its internal merits, rather than as representative of anything
"correct" or "incorrect."  That was one of his main points, right? 

Yes, I'm also one of those folks who think GG's '81 Goldbergs are *not* an
improvement over the '55, '54 (CBC), or '59 (Salzburg) sets.  My current
order of preference: '59, '55, '54, '81.  His 1981 style bugs me, in large
part because of that *&@#$&^* inhuman and unnatural general evenness of
notes, the neglect of rhetorical phrases.  The earlier performances sound
more graceful to me. 

I was amused to see in the newest _Fanfare_ the reviewer remarks that
large-scale rhetoric eluded GG in the Chromatic Fantasy.  Yup, definitely. 

Bradley Lehman ~ Harrisonburg VA, USA ~ 38.44N+78.87W
bpl@umich.edu ~ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/