Bach - 7.dynamics
Bach - 7.dynamics
Bach - 7.dynamics
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Bach
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Performing Bach's Keyboard Music
Dynamics
A Postscript
By George A. Kochevitsky
New York City
Dynamics
The performer of Bach's music should keep in mind the fact that in
the Baroque period it was the structure of the composition that determined
the dynamic levels; dynamics in Bach's pieces were conditioned structurally,
so to speak, rather than emotionally.
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taneous use of these two kinds of dynamic handling (structural and
inflexional) is known as the employment of "dual architectonic dynamics."3
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The frequent use of short, graded transitions from forte to piano and
vice versa would, of course, be quite " un-Bachian." However, the use of
the longer crescendo , though controversial, might not be out of place in
some of Bach's compositions. As a matter of fact, crescendos and dimin-
uendos had been known long before the Mannheimers; but under the
Mannheim conductor, Niccolo Jomelli, these devices achieved what Fred-
erick Dorian has termed "a new tone-poetic effect."6
A Postscript
Each generation tends to see works of art in the light of the char-
acteristics of its own time and to execute them according to its own ideas
and feelings. The nineteenth century witnessed numerous distortions of
the text of Bach's music and many misunderstandings of its substance and
spirit. Bach's music was frequently "romanticized" and "sentimentalized."
Towards the end of the nineteenth century, however, a real interest
in the stylistic interpretation of early music and a proclivity for fidelity
to text began to grow. The exaggeratedly subjective virtuoso pianisms
formerly considered effective in Bach keyboard performances gradually
began to be replaced by the concept of Werk-treue (fidelity to the com-
position).
The first element of Bach performance which attracted the attention
of musicologists was that of embellishments. In 1893 Dannreuther pub-
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lished his monumental (two volume) Musical Ornamentation. Arnold
Dolmetsch followed in 1915 with his extensive work, The Interpretation
of the Music of the 17th and 18th Centuries (a detailed discussion of the
various aspects of performance practices of the Baroque).
As Samuel Feinberg has so aptly put it: ". . . the musical composition
. . . fixed in a written form is never finished."9 The composition is com-
plete, of course, only when realized by a performer; and the "completed"
versions are bound to differ in many subtle ways, since the personality of
the performer is reflected in his interpretation. The writer refers, to be
sure, only to the really creative performance - only such a one has value.
This does not mean that textual and stylistic fidelity and personal
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approach are incompatible, or that such fidelity necessarily results in an
"antiseptic" performance.
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Unfortunately, much of the enormous amount of literature on J. S.
Bach (new as well as old) serves only to complicate further the intricate,
obscure, and perplexing Bach problems which already exist. The performer
should, then, hold definite reservations, while studying original sources
from the Baroque period just as he would in reading their modern expo-
sitions and elucidations. Both reflect their authors' personal tastes and
preferences and, at times, reveal a somewhat peculiar and contradictory
picture.
The performance rules were codified and had been passed from gen-
eration to generation, partly in written form, partly as oral tradition. The
latter were usually lost, however, when a dramatic change of styles occurred.
Such a change took place near the close of Bach's career - hence the loss
of the oral traditions concerning Bach's own performance practices.
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indeed, intended . . to set the wanderers [those who would apply orna-
mentation inappropriately] back on the right path by prescribing a correct
method according to his intentions, and, thus, to watch over the preser-
vation of his own honor."15
Furthermore, the performer must remain fully aware that since musical
notation was (and still is) an imprecise oversimplification, he must become
skilled in the kind of "reading between the notes" which will enable him
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to bring to life the music of earlier times. As Leopold Stokowski once
said, "The most important things in music are not written down."19
Footnotes
10
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15 See Scheibe, Critischer Musicus, " Unparteyische Anmerkungen ber eine bedenk-
liche stelle in dem sechsten Stcke des critischen Musicus . . . dem Hochedlen
Herrn, Herrn Johann Sebastian Bachen . . . pp. 835-858, and, especially, p. 854.
For an English translation see Hans T. David and Arthur Mendel, The Bach
Reader, pp. 239-247 and, especially, pp. 245-2 46.
16 See Putnam C. Aldrich's article, "The 'Authentic' Performance of Baroque Music,"
in Essays on Music (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957).
17 See Donald Jay Grout's article, "On Historical Authenticity in the Performance of
old Music," Essays on Music (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1957),
pp. 341-347.
18 See Grout, "On Historical Authenticity."
19 Leopold Stokowski, in a conversation with George Kochevitsky.
20 See Grout, "On Historical Authenticity."
11
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