The cover of the new ECM Records album of Keith Jarrett, with nothing to do with members of the Bach family or the keyboard instruments they played (courtesy of DL Media)
Some readers may recall that, this past March, ECM Records reissued Book of Ways, a two-CD album of Keith Jarrett improvising at the keyboard of a clavichord. Some may choose to approach this as context for the next Jarrett release, which will take place one week from today. While Book of Ways was a reissue, next week’s album is being released for the very first time, even though the tracks were recorded in May of 1994. The content consists of six keyboard sonatas composed by Carl Philiipp Emanuel (CPE) Bach, cataloged as Wq 49 and known collectively as the Württemberg Sonatas. Amazon.com has created a Web page for pre-orders.
The accompanying booklet includes a Jarrett quote that left me thinking:
I heard the Württemberg Sonatas recorded by harpsichordists. And I felt there was space left for a piano version.
The six sonatas dedicated to Charles Eugene, Duke of Württemberg, were published in 1744, when Bach was based in Berlin. This was when he was supported by his service to the court of Frederick the Great. Bach was also interested in pedagogy, and the first part of his Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen (an essay on the true art of playing keyboard instruments) was published in 1753. By this time he was applying his own techniques to the clavichord and the the fortepiano. Indeed, in that classic story of Frederick providing Bach’s father with a theme that became the basis for the BWV 1079 Musical Offering, the king picked out the theme on a fortepiano that he wanted to show off to the elder Bach. To be fair, however, anyone browsing Amazon will find that there is no shortage of performances of music by the younger Bach played on a harpsichord!
What matters more than whether strings are plucked or struck is the clarity of the sounds that result. In recording these Württemberg sonatas, Jarrett makes it a point to endow every note he strikes with the clarity it deserves. This is particularly important because Bach was never shy about writing lightning-fast passages. (I have been working my way through the Wq 61 collection, also consisting of six pieces, only two of which are sonatas; and those passages drive me crazy!)
When I wrote about Alexander Melnikov’s latest album Fantasie: Seven Composers, Seven Keyboards, I found out that, where this particular Bach was concerned, Melnikov chose to play the music on a tangent piano built in 1790 (which is about two year’s after Bach’s death). That makes for a sharp contrast with his performance of the elder Bach’s BWV 903 “chromatic” fantasia coupled with a fugue, which is played on a two-manual harpsichord. The fact is, however, that any one of these compositions can hold its own on a modern piano as long as the pianist gives the marks on paper the treatment they deserve. In that context Jarrett’s performances on this new album are both clear and engaging, and I shall leave it to musicologists seeking topics for publication to address any other issues!
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