At the beginning of this past October, Deutsche Grammophon released its latest album of solo performances by pianist Daniil Trifonov. By my reckoning, this is his third “themed” two-CD release, following up on Silver Age, which was released in October of 2020, and the first of his projects, Chopin Evocations, which was released in August of 2017. The title of the new album is Bach: The Art of Life.
Those familiar with the music of Johann Sebastian Bach will have no trouble associating that title with Bach’s final composition, The Art of Fugue, BWV 1080, which was left unfinished at the time of his death on July 28, 1750. The contents of this work consists of fourteen fugues (the last being the one left unfinished) and four canons all based on the same D minor subject theme. The best one-sentence description of this final achievement can probably best be found in Christoph Wolff’s book, Johann Sebastian Bach, the Learned Musician as follows:
The governing idea of the work was an exploration in depth of the contrapuntal possibilities inherent in a single musical subject.
In other words, while Bach’s career was devoted almost entirely to composition and performance, BWV 1080 suggests that, at the end of his life, he had shifted his attention to a more intellectual pursuit.
Indeed, the manuscript pages give no indication of how his monumental collection of marks on paper should be performed. For the most part, each voice in a fugue or canon was assigned its own staff in both Bach’s manuscript and the first published edition, prepared by Bach’s son Carl Philipp Emanuel. On the other hand, on the final page of that unfinished fugue in Bach’s own hand, he was notating a fugue in three voices on only two staves:
The page that Bach was writing when he died. The text following the music is by Emanuel, stating, in translation into English, “on this fugue, where the name B A C H is introduced in the countersubject, the composer died” (from Wikimedia Commons, public domain)
When I first decided to explore this music, I used the performing edition for piano that was prepared for Edition Peters by Carl Czerny. In all likelihood Trifonov used the same source for his recording sessions. The only exception would have been the final unfinished fugue, for which he composed his own completion. Those visiting the Wikipedia page for BWV 1080 will see that it has been kept up to date, including Trifonov’s version among past efforts by keyboardists and conductors. This amounts to a rather generous share of attention being given to a manuscript that was not intended for performance!
In the context of all that attention, I am happy to say that I find Trifonov’s approach to the music about as satisfying as one can expect. Mind you, there is something dramatic in breaking off the performance of that fourteenth fugue with the final vestiges of Bach’s own notation. However, the listening experience tends to run the gamut from annoyingly disconcerting to just plain silly. Trifonov’s “performing version” makes for a more engaging listening experience, even if much of it is speculative.
On his album the performance of BWV 1080 is preceded by what the “advance material” describes as “a family portrait.” This is devoted primarily to relatively brief accounts of music composed by four of Sebastian’s sons. Emanuel is represented by the fourth of the six short pieces cataloged as Wq 59, a rondo in C minor. Wilhelm Friedmann’s offering is the eighth (in the key of E minor) of the twelve polonaises catalogued as F. 12. The album begins with a two-movement sonata in A major by Johann Christian Bach, the fifth in his Opus 17 publication of six keyboard sonatas. However, most listeners will probably be drawn to the selection by Johann Christoph Friedrich, a set of variations on “Ah, vous dirai-je maman,” which makes a lovely complement to Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s set of variations on the same theme.
Trifonov also includes twelve selections for the 1725 Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach. These include transcriptions of another one of Emanuel’s polonaises (in G minor), Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel’s song “Bist du bei mir” (if thou be near), and a G major minuet by Christian Petzold. The other nine selections are taken from Sebastian’s own music.
The album also includes two “latter day” accounts of “Bach the father.” The first of the two CDs in the collection concludes with Johannes Brahms’ piano arrangement of the concluding Chaconne movement from the BWV 1004 solo violin partita in D minor. This is a particularly impressive undertaking, because Brahms explicitly composed it to be performed by the left hand alone. The second CD concludes with Myra Hess’ arrangement of the chorale movement from the BWV 147 cantata Herz und Mund und Tat und Leben (heart and mouth and deed and life), best known under the title “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring.”
Taken as a whole, the album serves up a more than generous account of Sebastian’s music set in the context of four of his sons and two arrangements from the future, all given well-informed and satisfying accounts through Trifonov’s execution technique.
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