Claudio and Dale were discussing the qualities of BWV904 played on organ and harpsichord. One organ prelude that I think works better on harpsichord than organ is BWV 539 (p&f d minor, prelude manualiter), but I can’t comfortably adapt the pedal part of the fugue for two hands.
However, this morning I found that BWV 549 (c minor P&F, pedaliter) works well on the harpsichord too, despite the prominent pedal part. In fact, it’s considerably easier to play it with the left hand rather than the feet. There are utube videos of BWV549 for brass quintet (Italian Wonderbrass) and for an accordeon rendition, but none that uses harpsichord as far as I can see.
In general, I think that my playing of Bach’s organ music on the organ has been greatly enriched by my playing of his harpsichord music on the harpsichord. Here, I am just wondering if anyone else has a favourite organ work or works (choral preludes?) they like to play on harpsichord.
Michael
I agree that the prelude of BWV 539 works very well on a hps. Maybe a more satisfactory approach to the fugue would be to start with the violin solo fugue that Bach started with, and adapt that for hps solo. I haven’t tried it.
Playing Bach’s keyboard music on the ‘wrong’ keyboard is a good way to discover exactly what’s ‘wrong’ about it - maybe nothing at all ; and what makes it ‘right’, and how, on the ‘right’ keyboard.
Something rather different: the Voluntaries of Samuel Wesley (1766-1837). He grew up in Bristol and would have played the very nice Snetzler chamber organ in the Wesleyan chapel. I’ve played one of the voluntaries on this organ, but they work well on a harpsichord. Even better I should think on a big Kirkman/Shudi/Broadwood, but I don’t now have easy access to one of those. There’s a modern edition on imslp.
Much early organ music goes well on the clavichord too. I’ve been reading through some F. Couperin organ music on clavichord; quite soothing, even though it doesn’t sound much like a French organ!
John Stanley’s 30 Voluntaries are described prominently on the title page as for organ or harpsichord. I have often played them with great pleasure on the organ, for which they are fully registrated; but I do not find them suitable for the harpsichord. I suspect that it was a ploy to increase sales!
Are you referring to S.910-916? If so, while I can imagine arrangements for organ, the use of the pedals would rob the LH of a lot of interest.
What are the grounds for suggesting that these toccatas were written for organ? They sound fine on the harpsichord, whereas I dont think the F major organ toccata would.
But maybe I am thinking of the wrong works, as you didnt specify.
Indeed, the MS copy by Johann Christoph Bach directly says manualiter - for manuals only, as I understand the term. You wouldn’t say that for a harpsichord (without pedals).
Thanks Stuart, not at all pointless in my case! as I have never played some of these. As David P says, some of the bass writing suggests an organ pedal part which would leave the left hand free to eat a croissant, drink coffee, or improvise another inner part.
Presumably JC Bach would have encountered more organs without pedals in London- nice that he calls his father “Basti”.
Thanks too to David G for the Samuel Wesley suggestion- I find him surprisingly witty on the harpsichord and will be looking at more of him.
Le 10/07/2023 14:49, draak via The Jackrail écrit :
Playing Bach’s keyboard music on the ‘wrong’ keyboard is a good way to discover exactly what’s ‘wrong’ about it - maybe nothing at all ; and what makes it ‘right’, and how, on the ‘right’ keyboard.
There are also pieces that can’t be played as written on the “right”
instrument and only work on the “wrong” instrument. WTC I, fugue in A
minor, of course, but also the numerous pieces where the pedal point can
actually be held, but no longer heard by the time one gets to the end of
it, in particular before final cadences, which therefore sound like they
end on a 6 or 6/4 chord if you don’t restrike the bass (Art of fugue,
WTC, etc.). Perhaps a case where two wrongs make a right.
Interesting observations. I recall vaguely that Frescobaldi, or maybe it was somebody else, suggested re-striking keys as the player thought effective. {Sorry to be vague, but I don’t have the evidence at hand.} I wonder whether there’s any evidence about how JSB {or his contemporaries} might have thought about this? And in the sources for earlier repertoire there are gazillions of missing ties. Or were they omitted on purpose? Is there any research on this specific issue?
I don’t know any documental evidence - I guess others will chime in - but my teacher teached me to re-struck the bass note again, for example at the end of the c minor fugue in wtc1. The reasoning was: on the harpsichord, the tied bass (a three bars long tie) can’t be heard anymore when the final chord is played, so the fugue seems to end with a 6/4 chord even though graphically the fundamental is there in the bass. I find this aurally convincing. Of course one can re-struck the bass before the last chord, if one thinks Bach wants a chord without a bass fundamental but without the effect of ending with a 6/4 chord. Or can be arpeggiated or whatever.
Somebody has already proposed this in this thread, sorry I don’t remember who.
Le 12/07/2023 00:16, Domenico Statuto via The Jackrail écrit :
I don’t know any documental evidence - I guess others will chime in - but my teacher teached me to re-struck the bass note again, for example at the end of the c minor fugue in wtc1. The reasoning was: on the harpsichord, the tied bass (a three bars long tie) can’t be heard anymore when the final chord is played, so the fugue seems to end with a 6/4 chord even thoughgraphically the fundamental is there in the bass. I find this aurally convincing. Of course one can re-struck the bass before the last chord, if one thinks Bach wants a chord without a bass fundamental but without the effect of ending with a 6/4 chord. Or can be arpeggiated or whatever.
Of course, it’s easy to find a solution for the final cadences. But the
question remains: why did Bach write for the harpsichord something that
will only work on the organ? In the WTC I, A minor fugue, it’s not only
impossible to make the pedal point heard for its duration, but to play
all the other notes while holding it: you need a pedalboard. I’ve read
several different conjectures, but nothing really convincing.
Frescobaldi’s preface to the first book of toccatas etc. includes:
“Let the beginnings of the toccatas be done adagio, and arpeggiated: and so in the ties, or dissonances, as also in the middle of the work they will be struck together, in order not to leave the Instrument empty: which striking will be repeated at the pleasure of the player.”
Sorry I overlooked this. The only reason I can think of is: that A is harmonically a pedal, and pedals are tied. Bach could have write it that way for a sort of formal correctness. I haven’t read anything on that.
I am interested. Can you please point me towards some of those conjectures? Or maybe briefly resume them?
D
Frescobaldi’s preface to the first book of toccatas etc. includes:
“Let the beginnings of the toccatas be done adagio, and arpeggiated: and so in the ties, or dissonances, as also in the middle of the work they will be struck together, in order not to leave the Instrument empty: which striking will be repeated at the pleasure of the player.”
An opportunity to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini’s ‘The Art of ‘Not Leaving the Instrument Empty’: Comments on Early Italian Harpsichord Playing’, Early Music, Vol. 11, No. 3 (Jul., 1983), pp. 299-308, which surveys several relevant sources and may be downloaded at https://www.jstor.org/stable/3138017
In his edition of the A minor fugue in Book I, Tovey writes: “This is probably written for a harpsichord with pedals, though Bach may have had the last eight bars assisted by a third hand. … If Bach used a pedal board or a third hand (playing, of course, “with 16 foot tone” – i.e., adding a lower octave) in this Fugue, it entered not merely on the final organ point, but already as the bass of the chords beginning with the pause. The notes here added in small print thus represent not a pianoforte modernisation, but the actual facts of the case. The player can use either a score-reader’s arpeggio-skips (as indicated in bracketed gracenotes in the last three bars) or get a friend to lend a hand.”
He makes no comment about the end of the C minor fugue.
May I use the passage quoted by David Pickett from the end of the a-minor fugue to illustrate that the ear must be intended to ‘hear’ tones that are no longer sounding?
The bass notes in mm. 79-82 are short, but they determine the harmony, specifically which inversion of the chord is intended, even during the rests in the bass voice. For example, the harmony on the 2nd eighth-note of m. 82 is not an E-major 6/4 chord. The aural retention of the presiding but silent bass tone makes it simply a root-position E-major chord.
Le 12/07/2023 11:00, Domenico Statuto via The Jackrail écrit :
I am interested. Can you please point me towards some of those conjectures? Or maybe briefly resume them?
Here’s what David Ledbetter writes in /Bach’s Well-tempered Clavier THE
48 PRELUDES AND FUGUES/:
This extraordinary fugue poses a number of riddles. […] Peter
Williams has proposed that it may be a demonstration fugue, not intended for
performance, as he suggests that some of The Art of Fugue may be (1984
p.192),
and that this may explain the difficulty of playing the ending, if it
was just to
demonstrate the device of a four-voice stretto over a pedal. From what we
know of Bach it is unlikely that he ever intended anything as paper
music, and
the magnificent rhetorical ending of this fugue is plainly designed to
be effective
in performance. Rather than an abstract demonstration it seems more
likely to have been intended as a competition piece, with which Bach in his
twenties could play his opponent into the ground both as keyboard virtuoso
and contrapuntist, if a pedal harpsichord was available for the occasion.
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