Johan Sebastian Bach was forty-one years old when, in 1726, he published his Keyboard Partita No 1.
This was, in fact, the very first work published by Bach. And by that
time the composer was already being feted as an inimitable artiste: “It
was with equal brilliance that he performed on any manner of keyboard;
as for the organ, well, who could compare with him?” (Christian
Friedrich Daniel Schubart).
By 1731 a further five partitas had been written and Bach published them in a collation entitled Klavierübung
(Keyboard Exercises Consisting of Preludes, Allemandes, Courantes,
Sarabands, Jigs, Minuets and Other Pieces Written for the Enjoyment of
Amateurs. Part I. Author’s Edition. 1731). The next decade saw the publication of another three parts of the Keyboard Exercises.
The modest name of these collations should not mislead us: we are faced
at one and the same time highly imaginative examples of keyboard music
and an encyclopaedia of performing skills. And the earlier (1720–1722)
English and French Suites and Partitas (the culmination of Bach’s
achievements in the suite genre) form broadly expanded cycles of
pieces, where the sections of a traditional dance nature (allemande,
courante, jig, minuet…) alternate with non-dance sections (prelude,
preamble, toccata, capriccio, burlesque, scherzo…). And the dances
themselves were inspired and poeticised by Bach. The saraband, for
example, forms the lyrical core of the partita.
Some of his keyboard music Bach intended for clavichord with its
intimate “domestic” sound, other pieces for clavecina, its palette,
rich in colours, and its sharper, sparkling timbre being in a condition
to raise the interest of a small assembly, a salon of amateurs. In
a large and modern concert hall, this is also accepted by leading Bach
historian Albert Schweizer, whose own preference lay with
the clavecina – the sound of the clavecina being “so enchantingly close
... it appears weak and somewhat jingly tinkling at a distance of seven
or eight metres.”
Today, both authentic interpretations of keyboard pieces on
the harpsichord (the modern technique facilitates an intensification,
a sotto voce, of its sound) and on the modern piano, which brought
about Bach’s dream of a “melodious manner of performing”, are in demand
in equal measure. Schweizer was right in stating that “In essence all
of Bach’s works were written for the ideal instrument, borrowing
the possibilities of polyphonic playing from the harpsichord and all
the advantages of drawing out sound from string instruments.”
A masterpiece from start to finish;
a masterpiece of taste, melody and expression.
A. Ulybyshev
The judgement on Beethoven’s Pathétique sonata in the above epigraph came from Alexander Dmitrievich Ulybyshev, a renowned Mozart expert and author of The New Biography of Mozart. This admission comes at a price: in his book Beethoven, His Critics and Commentators
(Leipzig, 1857; published in French), the author pays due tribute to
Beethoven as one of the greatest composers, while he criticises many of
his works for their “disharmony” in contrast with Mozart’s “absolute
perfection”.
The Sonata in C Minor, Op. 13 (1798–1799), is dedicated to Prince Karl
Lichnowsky; the composer himself described it as Die Grosse Pathétique
Sonata. Following his great predecessors, Beethoven (he once said he
“stood upon the shoulders of giants”) developed the traditions of
Gluck, Mozart and Haydn, bringing something new that answered the call
of the age, something of the heroic. “Music became human, it became a human being,
a man of the new century – herein lies the secret of this revolution,”
Romain Rolland was to write over one century later. He includes
the testimony of Beethoven’s youngest contemporary, the composer and
pianist Ignaz Moscheles, who recounted that “passions for and against
the Pathétique Sonata flared up as if concerning some new
opera.” Classically oriented critics accused Beethoven “of constantly
searching for fantastical modulations, of systematic repugnance to
natural transitions, of a terrible tangled heap of difficulties so that
like it or not, one loses one’s patience…” (from Die Allgemeine Musikzeitung, which was published in Leipzig). Audiences today who know the Pathétique
Sonata almost from their school years (and many of them have attempted
it with their own timid fingers) may be astonished at such inveterate
views, but – alas! – such are the timeless dialectics of old and new in
art! It was not by chance that Romain Rolland wrote of the heroic
rebelliousness of the young Beethoven that “From the romanticism of his
style, the wigs would stand on end.” The majestic and tragic
declamation, the passionate and fiery pathos of the first section,
the chaste lyricism of the elevated, melodious Adagio, the impetuous
yet refined plastique of the final Rondo… Today the Pathétique
Sonata, much loved by pianists and audiences alike, is one of
the jewels in the crown of the philharmonic repertoire; let it be said
once more – “a masterpiece from start to finish”. | | |
Musorgsky composed the piano cycle Pictures at an Exhibition
in 1874 following and still impressed by the posthumous exhibition of
paintings and architectural designs by Viktor Gartman (1834–1873).
Stunned by the sudden demise of his friend, a talented artist and
architect, Musorgsky exclaimed in a letter: “Woe, woe! Oh, Russia’s
longsuffering art!” At the height of work on the series, he wrote to
V. V. Stasov: “… Gartman seethes as Boris seethed – the sounds
and the idea hung in the air, I swallow and eat my fill, I barely
manage to make any scratches on the paper…” The whole series, begun in
the very first days of June, was completed in less than three weeks: on
the last page of the manuscript the date stood ready: 22 June 1874. On
the title sheet Musorgsky had written “Dedicated to Vladimir
Vasilievich Stasov. Pictures at an Exhibition. A Recollection of Viktor
Gartman.”
In looking for “the soul of things” Musorgsky was least of all
interested in a “precise” musical illustration. His vast imagination as
a composer found inspiration to take off independently through
Gartman’s portraits, genre scenes and architectural compositions. This
is also true of the painter’s landscapes, and his genre sketches made
during his travels (The Old Castle, Les Tuileries, Cattle, Two Jews, Rich and Poor, Le Marché de Limoges, Les Catacombes), and his sketches for toys or theatre costumes (The Gnome, The Ballet of Un-hatched Fledglings). Images of Russian folklore – from fairytales, from legendary epos (The Peasant’s Hut on Chicken’s Legs, The Bogatyr Gates) –
were, for the first time in piano music, developed with such absolute
perfection. In the aforementioned letter to Stasov, Musorgsky gave
a glimpse of the idea behind the series: “My imagination can be seen in
the interludes.” This concerns the so-called Promenade – music
that is not weighed down directly by the artist’s drawings and that
brings together the various parts of different character in a united
whole. The interludes Musorgsky speaks of, or promenades, which lead
from one part of the exhibition to the next, are imbued with the spirit
“of a magnificent jewel of Russian culture – the celebrated refrain”
(M. Yudina). At the beginning, the Promenade sounds like an
independent, finished introduction to the series, and later it expands
broadly and diversely in its variations varies, preparing to introduce
a new “picture” in order that it can be triumphant in the exultant bell
ringing in the finale.
The originality and innovative nature of Musorgsky’s piano style was
not immediately well accepted by his contemporaries. For a long time, Pictures at an Exhibition
was considered to be “not a pianoforte” piece and too “low” for
performance in concert. It was only in 1903 that the first performance
of Musorgsky’s cycle took place in Moscow by the pianist Hryhorij
Beklemishev. “A curious fact,” wrote the academician Boris
Vladimirovich Asafiev, “the closest generations, as if unbelieving of
the pianism of these … original experiences focussed on their
orchestration, and not on drawing from them the new principles of
the formation of piano music. No origins of a new style were to be felt
in them.”
That is the reason why in Russia audiences first heard highlights from Pictures at an Exhibition
in an orchestration by Mikhail Tushmalov, a pupil of Nikolai
Andreyevich Rimsky-Korsakov (these were performed under the baton of
Rimsky-Korsakov in November 1891 in St Petersburg). The first, full
symphonic score of the complete cycle written by Maurice Ravel (1922)
became firmly established in concert programmes. Later, too, searches
for new orchestral readings of Musorgsky’s piano cycle would continue.
In the USA, the instrumentation by Leopold Stokowski proved popular,
while in Finland it is that of Leo Funtek and in Russia that of Sergei
Gorchakov.
In the 20th century, thanks to outstanding Russian pianists – we may
mention, for example, the names of Maria Yudina and Svyatoslav
Richter – Pictures at an Exhibition became established in the international concert repertoire as one of the pearls of Russian piano music.
Iosif Raiskin |
