J. S. Bach: The English Suites - What's particularly English about them?

3/2/11 – J. S. Bach: The English Suites

It's easy to play any musical instrument: all you have to do is touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.

– J. S. Bach

            I think there is at least one composer or artist I associate with each piano teacher, and a different aspect of performance I gained from each of them along the way.  (Well, with the exception of the crappy grad student I got stuck with for my one semester of piano secondary in college; that’s another story.)  Bach and a certain gospel flair I attribute to Andrew Whitchger, who I studied with briefly and sporadically after the Betty van Camp era.  Past the scope and depth of the lesson series of Bastien I began learning under, Andrew put me on a solid diet of Bach’s two and three voice inventions.  As in, I was constantly working on at least one, without fail.  However it wasn’t until I started with Mike Springer that I was introduced to Bach’s other great collection of solo keyboard works – the French and English Suites.  Even then, it wasn’t until I saw a video on how to effectively and efficiently practice by Chick Corea using Bach’s “Goldberg Variations” that I really got into them.  By the way, any of you piano teachers should check out Chick’s video… if I could find it, I’d put a link up.  All I ran across is this snipet: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=na8W-rIUzQw .

Much like the Cello Suites from a few weeks ago, I feel somewhat at a loss not being familiar with the dance forms associated with the various movements of the suites presented here.  Also the lack of dynamic capabilities of the harpsichord limit the expressiveness any performer can breathe into the pieces.  That being said, the crystalline, fragile tone of the harpsichord is a beautiful medium for baroque counterpoint.  The clarity of lines is impeccable, despite the overly reverberant space in which this particular performance seems to have been recorded.  The artist’s clean and precise phrasing no doubt contributes greatly to the directness of the individual lines.

Tomorrow – The Very Best of Sarah Vaughan

Next week – Brahms: String Quartet No. 3