I want to listen to the Italian Concerto (Bach) in harpsichord. But for my frustration, no version available in Youtube that I heard strictly sticks to the tempo. All of them make some rubato. Do you guys know some harpsichordist that plays Bach like, for example, Glenn Gould did? That is, with strict adherence to tempo, no rubato at all?
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I'm not sure that a complete lack of rubato is desirable even in Bach - of course it is often overdone with ghastly results as if it were Romantic music, but it should be used with great subtlety, especially in slower movements. If you consider the harpsichord, it has no means of dynamic expression, so all that was available was rubato!'Man know thyself' -
This last sentence is very true. That's one of the first things harpsichordists learn, how to alter timings to give emphasis where it's needed, but without interrupting the pulse at larger intervals. The downbeats, for example, will always fall at the proper time, even if the timing is flexible inside the measure. You'll also notice that in polyphonic passages, notes written simultaneously are not really played that way, because then it would be hard to distinguish the lines from one another. It's hard for a modern listener to get used to that kind of playing, but the kind of strict rhythmic playing favored by most modern pianists ends up sounding brutal and unclear when transferred to the harpsichord.Originally posted by Peter View PostComment
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I nonetheless say allegros should be played in a strict tempo, except perhaps at some phrase endings. I have been surprised by the keen rhythmic sense of some harpsichordists, to the point of being unable to tell whether it was a machine that was playing. As an example of what I am saying, compare these two. The first murders the Italian Concerto with her arbitrary stretching and shrinking of the tempo. The other does it better.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltSTrAvW6Ds[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NMvqwfsLTAo[/youtube]Comment
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