l Bruce Salem's Criticism Page

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Bruce Salem's Music Criticism Page

In these pages I want to give my insights about Classical Music repertore via criticism of performance and analysis of important works. For more than fourty years I have collected sheet music, often orchestral scores, and recordings, began over twenty years ago to do analysis for myself of works important to me. I'd like to share some of that with you.

I am going to let this page grow organically and let it spawn other pages. One project I have in mind is to publish my ideas about the Variation form in Mahler, but that will be a large project. In the meantime I will write tidbits of criticism and analysis as I make my daily and weekly rounds of the literature via recordings and performances I hear and comment.

Bach's Well Tenpered Calvier and Glen Gould (11/24/2004)

I have learned so much about the "48" from the 1955 piano performances by Glen Gould that I am in awe of the performances despite the eccentricities of the performer or these performances. Gould is imfanous for singing along as he plays, and some choices of style of performing are unorthodox and downright strange. I thought that the fact that these are performed on piano would make them inauthentic and I am sure that a purist would insist that they be done on harpsichord or even clavier, but the instrument is not specified and I know that they are sometimes played on organ as well.

There are many adequate performances, most of them newer, by the way, in which what Bach has put on the page is admirably realized both in terms of purdance and adherence to sound performance practice, correct application of oranments. There are several recent performances, and most are on the harpsichord, where a romantic incluience is evadant in the use of rubatto. These are not highly objectionable, although my taste is to hear Bach with less rubatto rather than more. Hearing the Gould performances has made most other recordings seem uninspiring to me. Gould uses plenty of rubatto, but always for a reason to emphesize a point of arrival, a cadence. Some performers seem to do rubatto more or less slavishly by the measure, not really thinking of the phrase or larger form.

From the very first Perlude in Book I something amazing about the indepandance of the fingers and of each part is evidant. Gould uses accent and voicing to articulate his analysis of the music. The end of the second Prelude in C-Minor is a wonderful example of Gould bringing out a harmonic analysis of the arpeggios which notes carry the harmonic leverage. In the Fugues, the C# Minor and E-flat Minor, the weight given to individual inner parts gives Gould's analysis of the counterpoint. It is not usually the uncritical emphesis of the main subject whenever it is voiced, but a deep feel for where the movement falls in the parts.

Even though there is no question that the Well Tempered Calvier is keyboard music, not only from always being written in a reduced form, not an open score as the Art of Fugue or Musical Offering, I feel that one must always think of Bach as part music, even the keyboard works. Gould plays like he is constantly thinking of individual voices in counterpoint and not just in the fugues. The music is difficult to play, and I think that many performers are to be praised for playing it as it is written, but Gould's performances are special for adding something extra beyound the keyboard technique needed to play what is written.

One might be tempted to think of such music as this with a seriousness or even sacred reverence, but it admits much more emotional variety than either generations of keyboard students or strict teachers of technique and counterpoint are apt to at first realize. One of the great virtues of Gould's performances is that they stretch our view of the music in affect as well as quality. So a pointalistic or stacatto playing of the D-flat Fugue from Book II soulds whimsical, even frivalous, at first until you realize that Gould is trying to make the counterpuntal texture in the short notes transparent so that you hear the white note texture. This is done even though Bach's music for the piece has no white notes! It is as though Gould is showing you a harmonic analysis of the fugue. On the other hand the Prelude in B-Flat Minor from Book I is extremely emotional because of the use of legato and rubatto to create climax points of arrival within the piece. This is one place where the average performer may be tempted to gloss over one of the easier pieces but Gould turns that into a high point. His love for that prelude is unquestioned.

Bach on Midi

During the past two years I have gloried in J.S. Bach on the Web, particularly as MIDI files. In this way, I have been able to study the organ music and especially the organ chorales in many performances of the same works, such as from the Orgelbuchlein and the Leipzig set. Other collections are less complete. Many of the performances are interesting transcriptions. Here is a link to a midi file of the J.S. Bach Organ Chorale BWV 684 "Christ unser Herr zum Jordan kam" from the "German Organ Mass" Clavieriubung Part III. The cantus firmus is the chorale melody in the pedal. The piano realization doubles the CF in the bass with the manual parts as species invertable counterpoint above it. Anyone who has done transcriptions or knows of them from the Clavierubung III and Krienburger's collection is welcome to send me a link. (09/08/2003)