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The Well-"Tampered" Clavier, a 300th anniversary WTC Project Sam: Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, published in 1722, is one of the most important collections of keyboard music ever written. For three centuries, students, musicians and listeners alike have studied and revered these Preludes and Fugues as preeminent exemplars of Bach's contrapuntal mastery.For the 300th anniversary, my colleague Ralitza Patcheva and I are re-writing the entire book, 24 Preludes and Fugues, in a new, syncopated rhythmic style. |
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Ralitza: Bach's music is one of the most meaningful presences in my life. I think it made me realize that I want to be a musician when I was accompanying my dad in Bach's A minor Violin Concerto (a project he proposed in my tweens to coax me to practice more).
I have always admired Sam's musical vision both as a performer and as a composer. I found his early ventures into syncopated re-writings of Bach fascinating. It was a joy and an honor when he asked me to join him on this project. (To be fair, this project is 99% written by Sam.) Once I started playing his new rhythmic arrangements, I began seeing Bach's music in a whole new way and came up with a couple of quirky rhythmic ideas for some of the preludes, which Sam encouraged. |
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Why "tamper" with Bach's seminal keyboard music today?
Sam: Too often in my time in music, I've encountered teachers and performers who treat the music of the past like something to be preserved and replicated. Even coming from a place of reverence, this attitude leads naturally to sclerotic, academic music-making, rather than a creative flourishing of interpretation. I've known this music since I was a child, but for a number of reasons, I think it's due for reinvention.
Ralitza: When Bach composed the Well Tempered Clavier in 1722, what he was attempting to do in music was not at all institutionalized. Playing in all keys was something new, experimental, not entirely agreed upon and yet reflecting some of the latest discoveries of Bach's time. We are all too used to think of Bach as something given, old and academically approved which makes it easy to overlook some of the daring innovations and striking harmonies and rhythmic chains in his music. I find that Sam's arrangements have highlighted "hidden corners" of the music I thought I knew so well and have helped me achieve a fresh appreciation of Bach's fearless compositional manner.
Sam: Too often in my time in music, I've encountered teachers and performers who treat the music of the past like something to be preserved and replicated. Even coming from a place of reverence, this attitude leads naturally to sclerotic, academic music-making, rather than a creative flourishing of interpretation. I've known this music since I was a child, but for a number of reasons, I think it's due for reinvention.
Ralitza: When Bach composed the Well Tempered Clavier in 1722, what he was attempting to do in music was not at all institutionalized. Playing in all keys was something new, experimental, not entirely agreed upon and yet reflecting some of the latest discoveries of Bach's time. We are all too used to think of Bach as something given, old and academically approved which makes it easy to overlook some of the daring innovations and striking harmonies and rhythmic chains in his music. I find that Sam's arrangements have highlighted "hidden corners" of the music I thought I knew so well and have helped me achieve a fresh appreciation of Bach's fearless compositional manner.
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Bach and the Piano
Sam: As any dedicated piano student knows, Bach's keyboard music wasn't even written for the piano. Some people will say it should be played on the piano the same way one would play it on its native instrument(s), the harpsichord or clavichord. I say this is insane. The piano has some disadvantages compared to the harpsichord and clavichord, but it has great advantages too, namely, a much bigger range of sounds and colors, and especially, a percussive element, a "bite," to the articulation. Glenn Gould developed his own signature style of playing Bach that enhanced the natural articulation of the harpsichord with the extra bite of the piano sound. But he (with rare exception) stuck to the pitches and rhythms of the notated score as Bach wrote them. Our approach takes this natural articulative element of the piano a step further by changing the rhythms of the music to highlight the piano's natural advantages. Ralitza: Some of the most interesting information on articulation and rhythm has been taught to me by fascinating harpsichordists like Webb Wiggins and Lois Narvey (and by observation of his masterclasses, by Lark Ulrik Mortensen). I quickly discovered though that whatever leads to great beauty on the harpsichord can sound clumsy on the piano. If one plays piano right after practicing harpsichord (something I did often), the piano sound has an almost brassy quality to it. Transfering the idea of harpsichord articulation to the piano is possible to a degree, but only by adapting it to the actual sound and action of the instrument. When Sam explained that in his arrangements he would like to highlight some advantages of the piano action ( and not only the all-too-often-discussed one of producing different dynamics), I felt as if he had opened a window which I had always kept closed and it was a revelation to see all the new interpretive possibilities. |
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Rhythmic Variation: Evolution from Bach to Jazz
Sam: In Bach's music, a motive in a piece will move around to different keys, different registers, different instruments and voices, but by and large, it doesn't explore the "space" of different rhythms. Fast forward 200 years to the development of ragtime, jazz and pop styles, and this rhythmic variation becomes one of the main expressive elements of melody. Our approach synthesizes the strict nature of Bach with this freer element of jazz.
Ralitza: I find it quite natural that Bach's music has appealed to many jazz musicians. Behind its strict facade it offers a mind-boggling amount of possible interpretations of what one sees. I think Bach only used measures in writing music to make it more convenient for others to read his music. He does not fit within the measures, perhaps similarly to how Baroque painting spilled out of their frames. The combination of symmetry with asymmetry, striving towards the downbeat or escaping it- those are all possibilities present in Bach's music and once one makes a choice, the alternative possibility immediately can offer a challenge to this choice.
Sam's rhythmic interpretation electrifies the space around even the shortest note values with the possibility of the alternative choice, which could happen as soon as in the next beat and really sharpens one's rhythmic comprehension of Bach.
Our Syncopated Environment
Sam: Whether you realize it or not, syncopation is a part of your musical landscape in a way that it wasn't for Bach's time. Bach had never heard Scott Joplin, the Beatles or Taylor Swift. He had never heard tango, musical theater, or hip-hop. His music stands the test of time as it is, but there also certain aspects of it that we take for granted after 300 years. By re-imagining and re-inventing this music, we seek not to highlight its weaknesses, but rather its strengths, and to hear it in a new way.
Ralitza: We often read that Bach never traveled beyond the borders of several parts of what we call Germany today. While we easily recognize the unique quality of Bach's music, we rarely realize that it is a fascinating synthesis of several very different musical traditions. Some of them Bach encountered by his musical upbringing ( the Old Italian school filtered through the South German school of Pachelbel through his studies with his older brother; the North German school, with its elements of the Dutch and English keyboard schools of the late 16th century which he encountered during his teenage years). Some he learned about by hearing the music performed by "imported" court musicians ( French and Italian). Much of it he encountered through tireless study and rearranging of scores of other composers' music, for example those of his very fashionable contemporary, Antonio Vivaldi.
Bach developed his musical language constantly and fearlessly mingled old with new in it. In this he proved something quite timeless: that uniqueness is reached by welcoming and studying influence, and not by rejecting it.
Sam: In Bach's music, a motive in a piece will move around to different keys, different registers, different instruments and voices, but by and large, it doesn't explore the "space" of different rhythms. Fast forward 200 years to the development of ragtime, jazz and pop styles, and this rhythmic variation becomes one of the main expressive elements of melody. Our approach synthesizes the strict nature of Bach with this freer element of jazz.
Ralitza: I find it quite natural that Bach's music has appealed to many jazz musicians. Behind its strict facade it offers a mind-boggling amount of possible interpretations of what one sees. I think Bach only used measures in writing music to make it more convenient for others to read his music. He does not fit within the measures, perhaps similarly to how Baroque painting spilled out of their frames. The combination of symmetry with asymmetry, striving towards the downbeat or escaping it- those are all possibilities present in Bach's music and once one makes a choice, the alternative possibility immediately can offer a challenge to this choice.
Sam's rhythmic interpretation electrifies the space around even the shortest note values with the possibility of the alternative choice, which could happen as soon as in the next beat and really sharpens one's rhythmic comprehension of Bach.
Our Syncopated Environment
Sam: Whether you realize it or not, syncopation is a part of your musical landscape in a way that it wasn't for Bach's time. Bach had never heard Scott Joplin, the Beatles or Taylor Swift. He had never heard tango, musical theater, or hip-hop. His music stands the test of time as it is, but there also certain aspects of it that we take for granted after 300 years. By re-imagining and re-inventing this music, we seek not to highlight its weaknesses, but rather its strengths, and to hear it in a new way.
Ralitza: We often read that Bach never traveled beyond the borders of several parts of what we call Germany today. While we easily recognize the unique quality of Bach's music, we rarely realize that it is a fascinating synthesis of several very different musical traditions. Some of them Bach encountered by his musical upbringing ( the Old Italian school filtered through the South German school of Pachelbel through his studies with his older brother; the North German school, with its elements of the Dutch and English keyboard schools of the late 16th century which he encountered during his teenage years). Some he learned about by hearing the music performed by "imported" court musicians ( French and Italian). Much of it he encountered through tireless study and rearranging of scores of other composers' music, for example those of his very fashionable contemporary, Antonio Vivaldi.
Bach developed his musical language constantly and fearlessly mingled old with new in it. In this he proved something quite timeless: that uniqueness is reached by welcoming and studying influence, and not by rejecting it.
