Bach: Well-tempered clavier, Book 1
- Tizmon Barto, piano, on Naive Classics
- Andreas Staier, harpsichord, on Harmonia Mundi
Two new recordings of Bach’s first book of preludes and fugues in each key have come out as of late and the two couldn’t be more different. Both are worth your audition. The first is presented on piano and might be summarized as being a dark, quiet reading, treating each of the preludes and fugues in tempos that may surprise for their ability, albeit slow, to reveal the interestingness in Bach’s invention of themes. The second recording is presented on harpsichord, using a variety of colors and timbres that is unusual with most harpsichord recordings; this recording overall is more quicksilver in its tempo choices, compared to the piano recording. Both are similar in that the performers seem to be applying stress-tests to one of Bach’s most familiar keyboard collections.
Bach, while easily cast as someone focused looking backwards as a composer, should rightly be credited with also looking forwards. Musicians in his time tuned their keyboard instruments using tuning systems that didn’t put equal space between each pitch; these tempered-systems made some keys sound great while others were far too spicy, they simply didn’t work. This may mean once you’d tuned an instrument that you’d avoid pieces in a particular, exotic key, or otherwise you’d re-tune or otherwise find a compromise with a so-called well-tempered tuning system.
It meant that fixed-pitch instruments like an organ would be unplayable in the most exotic of keys.
There is much debate about what Bach meant by well-tempered. While the harpsichord was probably the most suitable instrument for this work, it would require an instrument you could easily tune yourself, so historically speaking, the harpsichord is almost always used, although the much softer clavichord or even early pianos are interesting departures. The modern piano approach to this work has never presented tuning concerns, as we now employ pretty universally an even-tempered system, although there is nothing stopping a piano tuner from trying other systems out. The modern piano offers more beyond tuning, however; the obvious variances in touch, sustain, and volume finding their way into performances. Some players resist the many opportunities the modern piano presents itself, others revel in the variety.
Bach likely viewed this piece as a pragmatic tool in helping those learning the keyboard to play well in all major and minor keys. The pieces do have a particular pedagogical aspect to them, showing many unique solutions about how we might craft a prelude and how we can build a good fugue. Their short nature speaks, for me, to their role as “exercises.” If we remember that musicians in Bach’s time typically weren’t just learning to play the keyboard, but also how to create their own music at the keyboard, these examples are more than just where to put your hands on the keys to make good music. There would have been an expectation to look at the variety among the preludes and the fugues as a myriad possibilities in how one could write introductions and fugal treatments of a theme. These skills would go beyond similar keyboard works; the skills could be applied to almost any musical setting, from religious music to symphonies. Other collections from J.S. Bach speak to a pragmatic nature as a resource to teach others (including his own children) how to play (and compose) well.
That Bach disseminated these works shows them in a secondary light, that of a collection that carries with it some novelty. Equal-temperament hadn’t yet taken on but here is a composer taking on this idea of presenting music across every key in an effort to challenge the theoretical debates around how we tune our instruments. It was a way for Bach to make a name for himself, writing along lines that got kind of fussy and technical for the musical public. It says nothing of the quality of the pieces, which, as time as showed us, were quite influential and well-wrought. While I often don’t think of Bach as someone who adored the limelight, with the collections he did pull together, probably best demonstrated with his four collections of the Clavier-Übung, one might imagine he did have some small amount of pride in his compositional abilities. WTC I and II however probably have had a greater influence over more people, however, as more approachable, more digestible pieces of musical art.
Harpsichordists always have an important choice to make on the tuning they choose for this work. While no theoretical works on tuning practices by Bach survive, the topic was one of interest to many who did write about how to tune. In some cases, in selecting tuning for an instrument like the harpsichord means that certain keys sound richer and agreeable, others toy with our contemporary expectations for what’s considered in-tune. These distinctions can be described by some as like variations in color. During the baroque, certain keys were called upon to recall particular emotions, in part because of the way they sounded when an instrument was tuned in a way that was not, in particular, tempered.
John Charles Francis writes about the idea of Bach’s own tuning as it’s been discovered, or postulated, from the cover of the WTC manuscript. I am not an expert in the subject, and I likely would have treated the swirls and loops as nothing more than decoration. As fascinating a find as this was, opinions are not solid on this interpretation. Which is why finding a tuning system outside of the meantone tuning system popular at the time is a challenge. What we do know is that Bach must have employed a tuning system that allowed one to sit down and play from his new collection; there’s even an anecdote I came across recently that says Bach played from the collection himself for demonstration purposes for a pupil. One doubts he was continually pulling out his tuning screw but who knows.
Tuning is not discussed in the notes provided by Harmonia Mundi in the new recording by harpsichordist Andreas Staier, although the instrument to my ears sounds tuned in a way that works across all the keys but with different effects. The tuning employed for me lends to the recording one of its more interesting facets, The liner notes for this recording provide an excellent historical backdrop to the work by expert Peter Wollny, but there is no mention of the performance of the work by Mr. Staier.
Up front, my favorite recording of these works, as a set, is the piano version by Frederich Gulda. There is a tightness to his control that parallels the ability of Gould, but his ideas are far more varied and interesting. He takes each couplet as it’s own microcosm, applying a different aesthetic solution to each one. Despite feeling there are many solutions one could employ in playing these pieces, this set, as a whole, makes so many aesthetically-satisfying solutions for me. His reading of the final pair in B minor is without peer.
You might draw parallels with Gulda’s reading and this new recording by Tzimon Barto (Naïve Classics) in how Gulda is able to make sensible music in some examples by slowing the tempo. Barto is more consistently slow, however, and seems ultimately cut from a different cloth. Barto’s touch is all around suave, alternating between legato and spacey-staccato, applied in ways within the same prelude or fugue that we can only imagine are inspired by the way he hears the phrases and not by what’s left on the score. He can start a phrase with one treatment, then come out of it using another, and for those listeners who are detail-oriented, this kind of small-detail attention can be interesting. His use of dynamic changes always, for me, fit the music. While it’s unfair to say his sound characteristic is always “soft”, his recording should be noted for being far more quiet than most. The C minor prelude is such an example where dynamics extend to the louder extreme (and one of the few examples where the tempo chosen isn’t uniformly slow). Overall the album is patina-ed in something more demure and understated. While some of this can be attributed to overall volume, there is a side too that stems from tempo.
The prelude in C-sharp minor (BWV 849) is presented almost painfully slow; the pauses he makes with his phrasing provide so much tension. All things slow aren’t bad, however; while I don’t think his chosen tempo for this example in particular is the “best” choice (best, representing here, a typical tempo) it does as rendered, with his rubato treatment of pulse as the piece unfolds, show us the potential of Bach’s invention. This reading casts the prelude in a different light and it’s potentially as I’ve written of this before, of Bach’s music having the special ability to work when thrown into extremes. It many times works, even as improbable as the performer may be, in terms of historical practice. By the time this piece ends what I found initially painful has slowed my heart rate and I picture a blue, super calm, and even chilly lake before dawn. What picture comes to your mind, if anything at all, probably isn’t important, but in giving in to the pace there is, I think, a reward.
The prelude in E minor (BWV 855) with it’s repeating pattern, surrenders all to the other voice in Barto’s controlled stretch of the work. I’d have thought the normally energetic fugue would have made a brilliant foil to the slower opening, but even the fugue is presented in a completely differently light.
Some are going to dislike Barto’s recording. It’s been made, I think, to be polarizing. It’s a very personal approach to this work that will be questioned by some. More times than not, I like the solutions Barto’s woven together. They seem uniquely his and I think he reveals some chiaroscuro-inspired revelations with Bach’s inventive themes. Listen to how long he holds the last chord in the prelude, BWV 849; then how he pulls at the theme for the fugue. He’s not a tease, he’s showing us the music actually can work this way. For me it’s smile-enducing if you’re willing to give him the opportunity to show you something different.
As a harpsichordist and fortepianist from the historically-informed tradition, Andreas Staier’s recording we might expect to encounter fewer interpretive surprises. Staier’s earlier recordings on Deustche Harmonia Mundi are my favorites of his playing Bach; they are well-recorded, the style speaks to me, and those recordings always conveyed a sense of both freshness and virtuosity. His recording of the Partitas are favorites, alongside those by Koopman.
More recently Staier has started recording on a 2004 copy of the “1734 Hamburg” Hass harpsichord. The instrument in question might be seen as us today as a “late German model” with all the bells and whistles. As he’s used it, he’s made use of its many different colors and timbre effects, including a very nasal register (which I detest) and the use of a 16’ set of strings. My first hearing of a 16’ harpsichord register was on a recording by Aapo Häkkinen, who’d used it in concertos. The lower octave gave his performance some gravitas. The instrument used by Staier doesn’t have any particular connection to Bach, himself, but as a matter of contemporary practice, a number of recordings of instruments with 16’ stops has come to market in the last decade. To many this lower register is unusual, as we’ve been accustomed to hearing instruments with one or two 8’ courses, alongside perhaps a 4’ foot, an octave higher, that when employed adds extra sparkle. Classics Today, in its review of one of these earlier recordings by Staier, detail a description of the instrument having a “riot of colors,” and I think we both agree.
The innovations seen in the Hass harpsichord were inspired from organ building and the “most famous” of Hass’s instruments was recently employed by Benjamin Alard in his Bach series, the instrument with three keyboards.
There’s no denying the effect when you employ different sets of strings on a harpsichord; on Staier’s instrument the effect is not only one of timbre but also volume. I auditioned a number of Staier’s recordings using this same instrument and found Harmonia Mundi’s sound across each was different in terms of overall volume and the acoustic environment that’s captured by the microphones. I thought the instrument sounded better in Harmonia Mundi’s Hamburg 1734 recording, noted above. This sound in the WTC 1 is quite hot for a harpsichord recording; moving between this one and the aforementioned recording on piano puts the harpsichord recording some decibels over the one on piano. This hotness is especially audible when using headphones where background hum can be detected in spots of instrumental silence. I’m not a recording engineer, but the kinds of details I pick up with headphones between the start and ending of tracks makes me think of all the things you’d tried to eliminate in a recording environment, including, I think, the performer humming along to the theme in the C major fugue. I’ve survived listening to many Keith Jarrett recordings, not to mention those by Gould, so I’m not bothered so much by the presence of a barely detectable human noise. I’d love to learn what it might have sounded like if the gain hadn’t been turned up so.
There are moments in this recording that speak to Staier’s technical prowess and authority. The F-sharp minor couplet opens strongly with energy and confidence, and it only builds throughout the prelude. The fugue is phrased so that the rising and falling nature of the subject becomes a recurring pattern that works to help propel the piece forward through a dark forest of interesting flora (my interpretation of how to think about the effect of the tuning for these pieces). Staier’s fleeting fingers make the prelude in G major (BWV 860) sound easy, but his consistency and evenness takes so much practice. The energy brought to light through the prelude carries on into the fugue. Staier’s pushing the tempos, I feel, which works, if you can pull it off, and he does. The fugue feels so solid in his hands; especially nice are all his execution and rhythmic positioning of the ornaments, including the trills. Again, the ending of the fugue here really winds down in an intelligent way that just feels natural.
The equal distribution of energy and tempo are also on display in the A minor couplet, BWV 865. The command he communicates with the fugue and the instrument’s registration is superlative to any other recording to my mind, his execution of the ornaments is the icing on this cake. Delicious. Kudos as well to him for the performances in the B-flat couplet, BWV 866. The tempos feel perfect and it becomes one of those happy affairs where you want to tap your foot along to the music.
Staier’s pacing in the G minor fugue feels ideal; I like how he almost pounces on the ornament that he places as an accent in the subject. It’s deliberateness is far more emphatic than simply leaning on the note or varying the articulation of notes around it. John Butt’s reading is quicker but lacks the “disfigured pearl” nature that Staier infuses into the theme; the version by Trevor Pinnock is an undressed affair by comparison, more of Bach wearing a t-shirt than in his suit, to appear before the public.
There are also moments which I think Staier applies the capabilities of his instrument with less pleasing results. Well could have been left alone. Let’s look at the prelude and fugue in D, BWV 850. Staier adds the 16’ register after his delightful prelude for the fugue. I get the effect, it would be akin to changing up the stops on an organ between a prelude and fugue; composers, including Bach, in fact, call for stop changes in the midst of his organ works. But the effect here is too abrupt with far too much contrast for my taste. The “riot of colors” this instrument can employ might work well for showpieces, you certainly have collected some on recordings like Soler’s Fandango or Royer’s March of the Scythes. The change of color and volume between one prelude and its fugue in the same key is jarring to me, when it’s employed in works like 850 or But this is a matter of taste and I don’t like all the colors this instrument produces. For quick access to some of the more colorful effects it produces, listen to the B-flat minor prelude (BWV 867), the C minor prelude (BWV 847) and the prelude in E (BWV 854).
Staier’s 1734 instrument (which is featured in this presentation by Staier himself via NPR) kept me from enjoying his Goldberg Variations BWV 988 as a whole. There is a conjecture that as a organist of some skill and fame that Bach might have had a lot of enjoyment from an instrument capable of different timbres and volumes. Stress testing his music on such an instrument is something I believe we are obliged to do, given our own contemporary search for musical fulfillment in our exploration of historical performance.
Gould once spoke about giving control of volume and timbre to the listener at home via recordings. He envisioned a time when the technology would permit customers of recordings to make changes to their equipment to model the sound to their taste. I almost wish that was an option here, to enjoy some of these pieces played with consistent instrument configurations, or the ability for us to decide which stops and string sets are active at any one particular time. Saying this is in effect a criticism of Staier’s application of all these instrument settings as he’s applied them here to one prelude or another fugue. One can’t help him for trying the “lute stop” on the opening C major prelude (BWV 846), given its writing as an allusion to playing a lute or guitar.
To be fair, Staier has been applying these effects of the Hass instrument in a number of recordings, including the earlier release of the WTC II in 2021. The opening prelude in that release, utilizing the instrument’s 16’ strings, is weighty, mighty, and brilliant. The choice to turn that register off for the fugue, which flies by, seems sensible. While I love an up-close and dry application in harpsichord recordings, the WTC II’s sense of air and reverb in the second book’s recording seems to make this instrument easier on our ears.
I still admire Staier’s playing and there are many examples in this recording of his strength as a musician, his technical control, his gentle and satisfying rallentandos at the end of pieces, and his choice and execution of ornaments. The changing colors he employs are also part of his artistry and I feel this aspect to the recording, as it was with WTC II, may be what divides listeners. Some will enjoy the novelty and some may not. At this point in time I find it more distracting than enjoyable, and timbre and volume changes do have a history in Bach’s organ works, but the newness of this technique when applied to the keyboard is still jarring to me when the two registrations, at least, are so different.
We can view Hass’s instrument as a novelty of his time; it unfortunately was built at the same time that the first pianos were being developed. Obviously the piano came to replace the harpsichord as the primary keyboard instrument, although throughout the classical period no one unified model of piano had been firmly established. Today’s landscape of different traditional, modern grands with different sound signatures (a Fazioli versus a Yamaha, etc.), the use of historical instruments, and the use of electronic instruments all give us options for variations in color and volume. Perhaps this Staier recording reminds me the most of a Wendy Carlos presentation of Bach, with the stark differences between one synthesizer voice to another.
I may well mellow on my criticism of his instrument over time, but at this point I am not used to these changes between these now familiar preludes and fugues. As much as I’m not used the timing of some of these pieces to be stretched so (by Barto). Which, while very different, these two recordings challenge us to hear Bach anew. And for these reasons they should be heard and considered. In both cases the artists behind them are masters. And sometimes we have to suspend our beliefs as we are treated to the reinvention of things that we think are familiar.
