Re: hanging with the Art of Fugue (was "portrait in Great Pianists")

[Bradley Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

At 09:04 PM 9/17/2000 -0700, Jim Morrison wrote:
> I should add for all those who haven't seen Hill's Hanssler CD, that he
> doesn't play all the pieces by himself.
> The inversion contrapuncti are played by he and Michael Behringer, who also
> uses a Keith Hill harpsichord.  Any idea why they used two harpsichords for
> those pieces? I thought all but one note of the Art of Fugue could be played
> with two hands.  Not that I'm objecting.  The result sounds nice and full
> but not cluttered like some of the concerti for two or more harpsichords can
> sound.

OK, here's the scoop on that.  (For convenience I use the numbering from
Christoph Wolff's edition (Eulenburg #1391) and Davitt Moroney's edition
(Henle #423)...i.e. the same numbering as on the Hill recording....)

Cp 12 and 13 are mirror fugues.  Bach wrote two versions of each, where the
lines get turned upside down as if in a mirror.

Cp 12 has four voices and it's straightforward mirroring: the RH plays what
the LH had, and vice versa (taking advantage of the fact that the human
hands are symmetrical).  Soprano and bass exchange; tenor and alto
exchange.  Compositionally this is fantastically difficult, of course: any
idea in the music must also make sense when turned upside down to go in the
opposite direction.

Cp 13 has only three voices, and the mirroring is trickier: in addition to
flipping all the parts upside down, they're rotated.  Alto becomes soprano,
soprano becomes bass, and bass becomes alto.  Therefore they also cross in
different places since the voices have moved around.  As if that wasn't
difficult enough, Bach tries to keep the whole thing playable by two hands
despite all the weirdness from the voice rotation.  And he
succeeds...except at bar 59.  The three notes are just too far enough to
reach: low G, middle C#, high Bb.  Ah well.

So, partly to "fix" this and partly to add another artistic component to
the Art of Fugue, Bach rearranges both versions of Cp 13 for two
harpsichords (instead of just one), Cp 18.  You'd think he'd might just
academically deal each of the three voices out to a hand and be done with
it, or maybe add something simple for the fourth hand to do.  But
NOooooo...first of all, he's already exhausted the possibilities of having
all the lines be mirrorable, so any fourth part is going to be free instead
of mirrored.  And it would be sort of plebeian to keep the free stuff all
in one player's hand.  So instead he goes cubist.  He breaks up the three
original voices and passes them around, redistributing them around the
stereo mix.  Oop, there it goes...nope, now it's over THERE...there it goes
again!  He changes the rhythms around to make the piece more complex and
exciting.  And wherever there's a hand free, not currently covering
material from the original Cp 13, he has it play one *or two* new voices to
make the texture more lively and complicated.  It's like a giant puzzle
where musical bits can be anywhere.  He demonstrates that it's still a
fugue even though everything has been chopped apart and reassembled
whimsically.  The ear picks out the motives even when they're hardly
visible on the page anymore.  Brilliant.  (This arrangement also implies
that one could rearrange other fugal pieces in a similar manner.)

Now, back to performance.  It's possible to put together a nice one-person
gig (either live or a recording) that covers all the material except for
the Cp 18, which is just a sort of duplication anyway, a later reworking
for an appendix of the collection.  The one unplayable note in Cp 13 can be
faked.  Cp 1 through 11 are straightforward, and pretty steadily increase
in difficulty.  Then Cp 12 and 13 are playable but *very* tricky,
especially if one wants a flowing tempo.  And then the canons and the
unfinished Cp 19 are not too bad again.  (In fact, the whole program works
on one *manual*, except that it's nice to have two in the augmentation
canon where the voices cross.)  One of the canons gives a spot to improvise
a cadenza; the Cp 19 gives the opportunity to compose additional music (or
not).  Nifty.  Overall it's not just an art of playing fugal music, but an
art of playing keyboard itself: the Art of Fugue touches every part of the
keyboard player's craft, from playing to analysis to fingering to
relaxation to improvising to composing.  It's like a graded textbook in
being a keyboard musician.  Working on it, one learns how to learn, and how
to think like Bach.

Cp 12 and 13 are like Olympic gymnastics: they take total physical and
mental preparation, and then still a little bit of luck on every occasion
no matter how thorough the preparation is.  (It's quite a feeling of
accomplishment to really nail them.)  It's tough to play Cp 12 and 13
clearly to begin with, because the hands are often locked into
uncomfortable positions just barely getting the notes, let alone making
them expressive.  The Cp 12 tends to sound better on two instruments
anyway: the long notes can be truly sustained instead of lifted when other
fast-moving parts in other voices need the same note.

Now then, if one is going to cover Cp 18 as well (and most inexplicably
leave out Cp 13 in that case, as if Cp 18 is "better" than Cp 13, as in
"new and improved"), one needs to hire a second player.  [People have also
recorded the Cp 18 (and sometimes also Cp 12 and Cp 13) overdubbing
themselves rather than hiring a second player.]  Why not give the second
player and instrument more to do than just coming in for the four minutes
of Cp 18?  It's rather practical to let the second player also help on the
difficult Cp 12 and/or 13 as well as 18.  It's not required, but it sounds
good.  Some have taken that farther and used two players for the whole
thing: both for the stereo effect and for getting all the notes more easily
and expressively.  The point is that we get to hear Bach's music played
beautifully, right?

So, in summary, the entire Art of Fugue can be played on manuals (no pedal)
by one player...except for the Cp 18 arrangement, and faking one note in Cp
13.  If Cp 18 is to be played, a second player is required.  If the second
player is already present, it can be nice (both for musical and non-musical
reasons) to let the second player do more than just assisting in Cp 18.  QED.

Bradley Lehman
Dayton VA
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl