Bach

[Sorrano]

I recall my first experience with Gould playing Bach. My brother had recorded the Goldberg Variations onto cassette for me and while I was listening I kept hearing what I thought were background noises. I thought my brother had been sloppy in recording, then I finally realized it was Gould!

[Michael]

There are quite a lot of pianists who supply a vocal accompaniment, although, to be fair, they do not charge extra. Jenoe Jando has quite a nice singing voice when he isn't being drowned out by that wretched piano.
While on the subject of extraneous noise, when CDs really took off in the late eighties, many listeners were taken aback by the sheer amount of background noise. These included distant traffic and studio noises but most people found the breathing noises of string quartet players to be the worst of all. When I bought the Italiano set in 1990, I was distracted for a while by the sudden intakes of breath which took place a split second before the opening of a particulary movement. These would normally have been disguised by the background of vinyl crackle.
Quite seriously, I remember seeing a picture of the Lindsay Quartet taken in the early nineties, where Peter Cropper is wearing what can only be described as a gas mask to eliminate this breathing problem. As people got more used to CD, this sort of over-reaction died out.

[Sorrano]

In the spirit of Cage, the breathing, background noises, etc. should be included. When you go to a live performance there is a lot of background noise. I can only imagine what kind of noises there were during performances in Beethoven's or Bach's time!

[Peter]

In the spirit of Cage, the breathing, background noises, etc. should be included. When you go to a live performance there is a lot of background noise. I can only imagine what kind of noises there were during performances in Beethoven's or Bach's time!

Yes well imagine Beethoven himself - probably an editor's nightmare today!

[Chris]

In the spirit of Cage, the breathing, background noises, etc. should be included. When you go to a live performance there is a lot of background noise. I can only imagine what kind of noises there were during performances in Beethoven's or Bach's time!

Yes, but the thing is, if you are micing instruments for a recording closely, the breathing will be much louder than it would be at live performance. I think it's reasonable to expect recordings to be pretty free of other sound. Of course, this can be taken way too far. For example, trying to noise reduce out recording hiss can eliminate frequencies from the music, and in those cases, I think it's better just to leave it. You never want to take anything away from would should be there.

[Michael]

Nowadays I take very little notice of background noises. In fact, agreeing with what Chris says, if the recording is too quiet it can be sterile and unnatural.
At the risk of remaining off topic, I'd just like to mention a little oddity I discovered back in the vinyl days. I think it was the Hungarian Quartet's recording of Beethoven's Op 59 No. 2. There was the sound of a distant siren which could vaguely be heard at a certain point during the exposition of the first movement. When the exposition repeat came around, the siren sounded again in the exact same place. "Aha!" I said to myself, "those lazy so-and-sos didn't bother playing the exposition repeat .... they just got the studio engineer to fake it by repeating the single take. What a giveaway".
To this day, I find myself occasionally listening carefully to internal repeats for the wrong (i.e. non-musical) reasons.

[Sorrano]

Nowadays I take very little notice of background noises. In fact, agreeing with what Chris says, if the recording is too quiet it can be sterile and unnatural.
At the risk of remaining off topic, I'd just like to mention a little oddity I discovered back in the vinyl days. I think it was the Hungarian Quartet's recording of Beethoven's Op 59 No. 2. There was the sound of a distant siren which could vaguely be heard at a certain point during the exposition of the first movement. When the exposition repeat came around, the siren sounded again in the exact same place. "Aha!" I said to myself, "those lazy so-and-sos didn't bother playing the exposition repeat .... they just got the studio engineer to fake it by repeating the single take. What a giveaway".
To this day, I find myself occasionally listening carefully to internal repeats for the wrong (i.e. non-musical) reasons.

That's hilarious! I've often wondered if in some cases repeats are "literal"!

[Quijote]

Peter has admonished me for owing many “I will get back to you”. So here is another long overdue one. I wanted to get back to Peter and Chris (in particular) on the issues that had been raised in this thread, but I notice the postings I found most interesting have been removed. Never mind. I should be quicker next time. All I can recall is that some of the postings merited response as they concerned important issues of HIP (historically informed performance).

As I am therefore not able to address those points, I would just like to respond to Chris’s (slightly petulant) complaint of Gould’s ‘humming’ during performance (which is not a HIP issue, I assure you !) : personally I find it not disturbing in the least ; as a ‘cellist I am well used to Casals doing the same. As did Serkin at the end of his career.

[Peter]

Peter has admonished me for owing many “I will get back to you”. So here is another long overdue one. I wanted to get back to Peter and Chris (in particular) on the issues that had been raised in this thread, but I notice the postings I found most interesting have been removed. Never mind. I should be quicker next time. All I can recall is that some of the postings merited response as they concerned important issues of HIP (historically informed performance).

As I am therefore not able to address those points, I would just like to respond to Chris’s (slightly petulant) complaint of Gould’s ‘humming’ during performance (which is not a HIP issue, I assure you !) : personally I find it not disturbing in the least ; as a ‘cellist I am well used to Casals doing the same. As did Serkin at the end of his career.

I don't recall removing any postings in this thread - something I rarely do and only if it has degenerated to the point of personal insults or total irrelevance.

[Chris]

Nothing has been removed in this thread. Perhaps you are thinking of another thread?

[Quijote]

I must have read the wrong thread. Thank you for the pointer.

[Chaszz]

I'm a Bach fan, but don't find a lot of his solo keyboard works that interesting, but rather often didactic and boring, and haven't spent that much time listening to them. I thought I would list some of the ones I do like a lot, though:

- Italian Concerto

- The opening and final fugues of the Musical Offering, when performed on harpsichord.

- The keyboard cadenza from the first movement of the 5th Brandenburg. What an incredible piece of writing. (I'm only an amateur guitarist, not a keyboard player, but I have a fairly specific idea how the climax/ending of this cadenza should be played, and I have never heard it played "correctly", as I think it should be, by any keyboard performer.)

- Prelude, Fugue and Allegro in Eb, BWV 998. A little gem of the first rank.

- Not a solo piece, but deserves mention: the monumental first movement of the Keyboard Concerto No. 1 in D Minor. What an example of powerful, driving rhythmic inevitability.

- My distaste for many of Bach's solo keyboard works doesn't extend to the organ, and I like most of his organ works. I especially like the Orgelbuchlein, meditative pieces which are so quiet and intimately moving.

[Kevin Ward]

I've done a complete turn around on Bach for piano over the years. At first I thought it should only be played on harpsichord, that the piano somehow makes it muddier, less baroque, with the notes less distinct. But for some reason I've come to enjoy baroque on piano more than harpsichord. Maybe it has something to do with recording techniques, but the harpsichord now seems harsh and noisy compared to the gentler piano timbre.

On the other hand, the organ works as Chaszz mentions, were always too far into a muddy reverberating sound for me and I have trouble distinguishing the individual notes and the structure of the piece. So I enjoy those works played on piano as well. I enjoy the organ trio sonatas played with a guitar trio. They seem livelier.

As for which piano performers, I go for Perahia. I think he doesn't intrude himself too much on the pieces, but lets Bach and the structure come through. He doesn't overuse those expressive pauses and hesitations that drive me crazy with many other performers, and that to my (perhaps naive) ears lose all sense of the piece's rhythm.

I don't know that I've heard Ashkenazy's Bach, but I do appreciate his Beethoven for the same reason. I feel he doesn't intrude himself into the music much, although Beethoven would naturally have more of those pauses better suited to his time than to baroque.

[Chaszz]

I've done a complete turn around on Bach for piano over the years. At first I thought it should only be played on harpsichord, that the piano somehow makes it muddier, less baroque, with the notes less distinct. But for some reason I've come to enjoy baroque on piano more than harpsichord. Maybe it has something to do with recording techniques, but the harpsichord now seems harsh and noisy compared to the gentler piano timbre.

On the other hand, the organ works as Chaszz mentions, were always too far into a muddy reverberating sound for me and I have trouble distinguishing the individual notes and the structure of the piece. So I enjoy those works played on piano as well. I enjoy the organ trio sonatas played with a guitar trio. They seem livelier.

As for which piano performers, I go for Perahia. I think he doesn't intrude himself too much on the pieces, but lets Bach and the structure come through. He doesn't overuse those expressive pauses and hesitations that drive me crazy with many other performers, and that to my (perhaps naive) ears lose all sense of the piece's rhythm.

I don't know that I've heard Ashkenazy's Bach, but I do appreciate his Beethoven for the same reason. I feel he doesn't intrude himself into the music much, although Beethoven would naturally have more of those pauses better suited to his time than to baroque.

I second your frustration with those pauses and hesitations. (Are they called "retards?"). I once got from a used CD store a CD of Bach works by a French pianist whose name I forget. She started EVERY two-measure phrase with a poetically sensitive hesitation, as reliably as a politician who hypocritically spouts pious platitudes at the beginning of every paragraph of a speech. I got so fed up I threw the CD out.

[Sorrano]

I don't know if this has had subliminal issues with me but I've very recently been pulling my Bach music out to start playing it again.