November 18: Keyboard Works, including the Partitas (Various Artists)

On Bach's great love for the keys

I’m through about 95% of Bach’s collected works, and the man and his music still remain elusive. That’s good!

You’ll get everything that Lynyrd Skynyrd has to say on the first go-round. Bach’s depth and mystery have kept us digging for centuries.

We can’t fully understand Bach, but I’ve arrived at one unfalsifiable hunch: his works for keyboard were his own favorites.

Many of the cantatas — technically perfect and often bursting with brilliance —sound a bit rote. Workaday stuff, which they were! My eight hours of cantatas last week were worthwhile and rewarding; these three hours of keyboard works were pure pleasure.

The keyboard (whether organ, clavichord, harpsichord, lute-harpsichord, or piano) is where Bach showed off his rizz and razzle-dazzle, where he proved he could do everything. The Goldbergs, the Partitas, the Toccatas, the many study pieces for young learners, the two books of the WTC — the catalog is ridiculous.

Listening to Bach’s polyphonic sprees for keyboard, with their harmonic surprises, driving rhythm, callbacks to earlier themes, and weaving lines of counterpoint, I feel fully plugged into the brain of the composer, channeled through performers born centuries after him. It’s like being in the Borg, but I get to keep my heart.

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I’m winding up the year with posts covering two collections of keyboard works (plus a grab bag of things I’d missed, and concluding with the Chaconne for solo violin). This post covers BWV’s 802-5, 818-9, 825-6, 828-831, 836-7, 841-3, 896, 910, and 916. I picked some major dudes to listen to this week: Sviatoslav Richter, William Kappel, Igor Levit, Robert Hill, and Glenn Gould. Let’s get to highlights.

The Duetto in E Minor BWV 802 was such a pleasant surprise — I listened to it a dozen times. I thought Richter was eccentrically starting his recital with a melodic minor scale, testing the piano or something. But no, it’s the theme Bach will proceed to crush for four minutes.

This is Bach in his weird mood. He had this particular multitude in him, and if all he left us were a few dozen pieces like this, he’d have been known as an all-time oddball genius.

There’s a certain flavor of magical jazz drummer that can play off the beat while everything still sounds perfectly in time. I’m thinking of Paul Motian, Andrew Cyrille, and Billy Hart, all of whose weird brilliance I’ve experienced in concert. I felt some of that magic time-vibe from the legendary Kapell in BWV 818, the Suite in A Minor.

Kapell in his prime, a few years prior to his death in a plane crash at 31.

I listened to the ultra-high finesse young lion Igor Levit for the Partitas.

Levit’s playing is a smooth and strong as his metal eyeglass frames.

The Partita in B-flat major BWV 825 is full of wow moments, like this toe-dip into minor in the Allemande:

We’re softly blazing in the Gigue:

Here’s Levit on the classic overture theme from Partita in D Major, BWV 828:

Which precedes the classic Allemande, the most famous lick is at 0:17 (which might just be famous to me…):

Levit takes 828’s Gigue at a hot pace, but he’s so warm and articulate. This piece sounds so much better on the modern grand piano than whatever instrument Bach was banging on. I'd bet JSB would have loved this performance:

More of the same steaming elegance in the Corrente of the G Minor Partita, BWV 829:

The Overture in a French Style BWV 831 was new to me; here’s Gould doing what he does best in the climactic Echo, his dryness an interesting contrast to Levit above:

Let’s close with the great Richter, who plays cat and mouse with the down beat in BWV 916, the Toccata in G: