Bach without Fear 3
Tobias
For the rest, let them try to convince us by their playing. About twenty
years ago, music critic Harold Schonberg reviewed a performance of the Bach
concerto for four harpsichords played on four Steinway pianos. Acknowledging
that Bach had written the piece for quite different instruments, and that it
had originally been played in a completely different style, Schonberg
admitted that the passion and commitment of the performance held him in
delightful thrall from the first bar to the last. His review was a paean of
praise for the eloquence of live performances, and the ability of compelling
performances to transcend scholarly concerns.
This last point is, for me, much more important that whether a work is
played on period instruments or not. I am lucky enough to live in the San
Francisco Bay area where we have several symphony orchestras, modern chamber
orchestras and a couple of period-instrument ensembles. In the 1980s, the
San Francisco Symphony used to have a Bach Festival, but that withered. Now,
Bach is mostly the preserve of the period-instrument groups. This is a pity,
especially because Philharmonia Baroque Orchestra happily plays Beethoven
and Mendelssohn. In most cities, such creative competition is not an option:
perhaps the local symphony orchestra has been inhibited by the purists, and
so no longer plays Bach or Corelli, but there is no period-instrument group
to plug the repertoire gap. The sad result is that the music that is most
often heard on the radio on the way to work is precisely that which is least
performed in the concert hall.
There is a logistical problem here, too. Most concert halls today are
designed for music on a grander scale than one generally finds in the
Baroque repertoire. I can well remember feeling a bit silly conducting a
performance of the Brandenburg Concerto No. 6, which requires eight players,
in a hall that held more than 2,500 people. Thank heavens it was played on
modern instruments so that the public could at least hear something!
Nevertheless, modern vs. period instruments was not the real issue. What was
amiss was that the hall, which was perfect for Mahler, could not do much for
chamber music.
This, to me, is a key concern: So much of the early repertoire is really for
chamber forces and needs to be played in a space that bears some resemblance
to a chamber. Some Baroque pieces, such as Handel’s Music for the Royal
Fireworks, sound splendid in a big hall, but they are the exception. I
strongly advocate that a symphony orchestra look for a smaller alternative
space to play the glorious music of Bach and his contemporaries. Symphony
musicians love performing it, and audiences deserve to hear it live, not
just on their car radios. Of course, there may be some mutterings from a
Puritan or two, but no one is stopping them from mounting their own
period-instrument concert series. As for the curmudgeons, let them be
invited as guest artists, let them give the pre-concert talk and let the
public hear them perform afterwards.
They had better be as captivating as the four Steinway pianists, though.
by Nicolas McGegan
Homepage: Nicolas McGegan
Article © 2005 by Nicholas McGegan. Adapted from an article that first
appeared in the September/October 2000 issue of SYMPHONY, the magazine of the American Symphony Orchestra League. Thanks to Yolanda Carden of FSB Associates.