Württemberg Sonatas
Keith Jarrett records the six “Württemburg” sonatas by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach on ECM New Series.
This recording came as a surprise. It was recorded in May 1994 at Jarrett’s home studio, but sat in the vault for this long. This is not the first time ECM has released a Jarrett album years after an initial recording date, which is cool, as long as you don’t grow impatient. Or maybe I’m too used to following Apple’s release schedule of new and shiny technology.
The sonatas were completed during C.P.E.’s father’s lifetime, rather forward leaning given the pieces his father would assemble in his time left on earth in the middle to late 1740s, including the Art of Fuging, the Musical Offering (tied to a visit J.S. Bach made to his son and his employer), not to mention the B minor mass. I became first acquainted with the pieces by way of the most excellent recording published in 2014 by Mahan Esfahani on Hyperion. Esfahani chose his main instrument, the harpsichord, upon which these pieces certainly work well. Esfahani uses the mechanical function of his instrument to produce dynamic changes which seem well-suited to the way the younger Bach wrote these works.
This new recording, which of course is the older one, uses piano. (Jarrett did, however, make recordings on his harpsichord with music by Bach, and on clavichord, for at least his own work, The Book of Ways.) It’s always interesting to me how the historically-informed movement makes its way into our musical performance culture, even when the music is performed by artists who are not necessarily baroque specialists (or in this case, galant?). It would be certainly historically appropriate to play these pieces on a fortepiano, a predecessor to the modern Steinway that Jarrett uses in this recording.
Before I sing the praises of this recording, for which I think it deserves, I should point out that I was often left disappointed with Jarrett’s recording of J.S. Bach’s music. I was always excited that a jazz icon like Jarrett chose to record Bach’s music, and I collected most of it, I think, including the Goldberg Variations, the French Suites and the two books of the Well-tempered Clavier. All of those together formed an opus that might have been performed by someone completely different than we heard in his jazz standards recordings, or even his solo improvisational marvels. Jarrett is an emotive pianist, and is of course known for his vocalizations while playing, which however it may be described by Jarrett or the press, is most certainly an artifact of putting all of your body and soul into the performance. His J.S. Bach, however, seemed to come from a different ideological perspective, maybe one born of Urtext, cleanly devoid of any emphasis with articulation or dynamics. As the HIP movement grew in popularity, perhaps Jarrett thought that putting what might be perceived as romantic glosses on the music might sully what interest he had in the movement. I cannot say, but despite collecting the albums, I never adopted any as say, reference recordings, instead of seeking those that exposed more of an artists own voice rather than the lack of one.
I wondered if this set might sound similar but it does not. Jarrett also recorded Mozart and his command of a more classic style I think is well done here, especially so given the choice of a “modern” piano.
The pieces were gifted to one of Bach’s young students who had recently taken on his new royal duties. Like from the instructional pieces wrought by his father, the movements each adopt some rather great inventions, in terms of the attractiveness of the key phrases, which we might start to think of as melodies rather than contrapuntal themes.
This quasi-historical point of view about keyboard playing seems to stay consistently in place as Jarrett never pushes his instrument too hard, in the nooks and crannies where more modern instruments overtake their historical counterparts. I think many performers of this music on piano would do the same, but there’s also a kind of dryness to the recording for some of the sonatas that for me reminds me of the shorter sustain on a period piano. But piano sound aside, Jarrett is generous with his dynamics throughout.
Can’t say what changed in the third, E minor sonata, but that dryness is gone in the recorded sound. But it’s an excellent example, as much as the first opening movement of the first sonata, to witness the dynamic shading Jarrett is capable of, not to mention his command of the music’s phrasing. The repetitive figure in the melody is the defining feature of the first movement’s development which is easy for anyone to pick out, a nod to what Beethoven would do in the opening of his fifth symphony.
The opening of the sixth sonata in B minor in Jarrett’s hands just might miss some of the rhetorical depth that could have been further infused into the opening. Yet it’s hard not to admire the care he puts into the endings of phrases, closing them both intelligently and with care that comes across easily through the recording, even without the benefit of seeing a performers facial gestures, which often can help elevate some of the feeling in music from this period. There are other parts of this opening movement which don’t seem to flow, again, I think it’s related to the type of rhetorical style Bach has adopted.
The sonata’s third movement is perhaps more backward looking, adopting a two voiced, contrapuntal fox chase which evokes the sound of one of father Bach’s fugues. It’s the type of work that epitomizes C.P.E. Bach’s place in the chasm between what today we bookmark as two significant periods of musical history. In a way, Emanuel Bach manages to bridge the high art his father concerned himself with until his dying day with the emerging and developing styles that would favor the texture of harmony with accompaniment. This final movement of the sonata and of the recording is well handled through Jarrett’s capable fingers. The rhythm has bounce and Jarrett contributes dynamic shade in a piece that really stands alone in its transitional style as a two-part invention stuck at the tail end of a sonata.
Jarrett, I think, also manages to keep the slower movements clothed in the same style as the outer ones without getting romantic or sentimental in his approach. Listen to the space he puts between the music in the opening sonata’s Andante. I could imagine some pianists wanting to treat this movement with pedal. Where as Esfahani is more willing to imbibe in some rubato in his playing (which I think works well), I think Jarrett’s phrasing and tightness of playing works in this recording with few regrets on my part finding satisfaction in both recordings.
I know I join many who admire Keith Jarrett’s contributions to music and have lamented the news of his debilitating strokes. The 1990s were a prolific decade for his recordings and the publication of this set of sonatas is significant for several reasons.
One, it highlights Jarrett’s versatility as a classical artist of an extremely high caliber. But away from building his reputation or ego, it also serves to bring this music to a wider audience, outside the scope of those focused on this period, or even those who take a more comprehensive look at “classical” repertoire. Emanuel Bach had his own voice but it is at times difficult to ignore the connection to his own genius to that of the care and tutelage of his father. While these pieces are not of the same weight or perhaps high art as the pieces his father was completing at the same time, they make nevertheless arresting pieces and I’d dare say we witness Jarrett taking great delight in them as he recorded them.
For those that admire the pieces themselves, you might want to also seek out the aforementioned recording by Esfahani. Both, I think, use this music to highlight both performers at high command of their art.
