I have known these pieces all of my life. I developed the way I wanted to hear them early on. I couldn't help seeking the sound and interpretations I grew up hearing (daily, and played by a great violinist in his early thirties, and then--also daily--a fifth lower on the viola). In the recordings I would later hear as an adult (seeking to replicate the best moments of my childhood experience), Milstein came the closest.
As an adult I always have the violin original (in the Szeryng edition) and the Polo transcription for viola on my stand. I alternate runs of the Sonatas and Partitas with runs of the Bach Cello Suites, and pepper them with runs of the Telemann Fantasies.
Before listening to Augustin Hadelich's 2021 recording I thought I knew these pieces rather well. But listening to this set, which he plays as a cycle: moving from the darkness of the G minor Sonata, through introspection, periods of questioning, periods of pathos, periods of complexity, and through the deep contours of the soul (the over-soul, if you will), with a trumphant arrival in C major (the third sonata, the fifth of the cycle), and a light set of celebratory dances in E major filled with humor, shows me just how perfunctory my understanding of this music has been.
Hadelich makes Bach's phrases feel absolute. He allows them to follow a logical kind of argument, which makes each movement a fully satisfying "chapter" that holds my attention from beginning to end. And then each subsequent "chapter" builds and reflects on the previous "goings on." He does this in a way that is not at all tiring to the listener, because, like a great film director working with great material, Hadelich is doing all the work. Listening allows me the space to observe and enjoy lines of music and counterpoint that I have never noticed before. It is like a walk in the woods with an expert guide who knows everything happening underground, above ground, and in the atmosphere.
My first introduction to Augustin Hadelich was during the preliminary round of the Indianapolis Violin Competition in 2006. He played the first two movements of the Bach A minor Sonata, and I was dazzled by his interpretation. But now, fifteen years later, his way of playing that piece is just as dazzling, but it is different. It is different beyond being more nuanced and sophisticated. He has moved into that musical territory of Bach playing "occupied" by Dinu Lipati.
(He also has a new violin--one of the great Strads--and a baroque bow, which allows for the kind of connection between notes that is so difficult to achieve with a modern bow.)
Now when I put bow to string to play Bach, my musical world of possibilities has been changed. Bach's music has always been music of the present and the future (with a nod to the past, which Bach experienced as his musical present). Hadelich's Bach steps forward and reveals new musical possibilities to me. No other violinist I have encountered, either in person or through recordings, has had his particular generousity of spirit, tremendous intelligence (musical and otherwise), and freedom to reach beyond playing traditions and bring Bach to a place where his music should be: current, modern, and, like nature (when it is allowed to) ever renewing.
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12 comments:
Beautiful meditation, thanks Elaine!
Lovely post! I will have to get the recording. I think I have only Milstein, and I was very, very impressed with Hadelich's Brahms at SFS the other week.
From what you write, (and write beautifully) I sense that Augustin Hadelich’s work with the magisterial Sonatas and Partitas picked you up and set you down in a new land. I underwent a similar journey many years ago when, for two dollars I snagged at a garage sale in Lincoln Nebraska, a recording of these inimitable treasures played by Brontislav Gimpel. For the past 40 years they have been my standard. Milstein, Szeryng, the remarkable Joseph Szigeti, all came close, but none triumphed with me like Gimpel.
Your tribute makes me look forward to hearing the Hadelich Bach . It will be consummate and revelatory. But will it remove Gimpel from his place in the fabric of my life? I can’t help but have a nagging suspicion that, whether Hadelich manages to or not, the reason for his triumph or “almost but not quite” will be based on my irrationality. This is frustrating because I have lived with and thought about music all my life and take pride in being a sensible fellow. Shouldn’t such an important decision be based on what I learned in school, what I gained from my teachers, what I gathered from my colleagues ? One would think those sources would be the first places to consult and most sensible places to start.
But being sensible when considering such important questions , I have come to believe, is for me, the wrong way to go about it. Abandoning what I know altogether and starting on “the other end of the
stick” is a more helpful approach.
My love of Gimpel’s Bach , is based , I confess, on nothing that I know about. My devotion to a Toccata of Galuppi or a fantasia by Thomas Lupo comes from places too far away for me to identify or label.
I want that distance to remain. It is that distance that makes the stuff sacred.
Your comment made me head to YouTube to listen to Gimpel, and I can assure you that his Bach is indeed special and singular. It is very bold and sure playing, with a sense of long phrasing that I really love, and something you should never ever consider removing from the fabric of your life. I believe that the heart has infinite space for thoughtful and personal readings of Bach, and there is no reason that Hadelich needs to take Gimpel's place, but I do wonder how much Gimpel would have enjoyed the opportunity to use a baroque bow, and would have appreciated the (now sort of standard in the 21st century) arpeggiation of the chords in the G minor fugue, and some of the modal alterations that have made their way into more recent editions.
Thank you for introducing me to Gimpel's Bach! I'm going to see what more I can find of his playing on these internets.
Thank you for your gracious and informed response to such meanderings!
What puzzles me about my enthralment with Gimpel’s Bach is how it goes completely counter to the general trend and history of my own musicking. I came to cognisance hearing the ululations of Alfred Deller singing English lute songs, traipsed through the various collegium musicums that resided in the university neighbourhoods of my school days, put gut strings on every object I could think of to turn away what I imagined to be the the insufferable musical tension of the 19th century, and have played the viola da gamba badly for almost as many years as there are miles in the combined length of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
Why then such an affection for Gimpel and his romantic Bach? For I can’t think a more “romantic” telling of Bach’s vision. Everything he does is just “not done” these days. I adore the HIP Bac that is going now. So why do I stubbornly hang on to Mr. Gimpel.
Perhaps it is because, despite what he lacks, he triumphs. Not the right bow, not the right strings, not the right knowledge that current players have culled from a continent of performance-practice research. Gimpel had none of that. All he had was Gimpel.
A shtetl to Bach.
He played like his life depended upon it.
Jonathan Brodie
I share some parts of your journey! I actually find that in my pursuit of purity, I shut out a lot in the way of musical experience. I have come to understand, now that I have reached a time in my life where I don’t really have time to waste on following this or that musical ideology, that I can embrace a variety of musical truths, when offered by true musicians. Sometimes I think of myself as a “recovering HIP” musician. I am learning that getting from note to note and phrase to phrase with integrity, intelligence, and true heartfelt expression is all that matters. I really can’t deal with musicians who play “early music” by followers a set of rules. As far as I’m concerned playing music “by the rules” is the worst thing to do if you want phrases to have meaning.
That our journeys share similar experiences may be due to a multitude of serendipities too numerous to list here. Two, though, are easily put forward now: we are of similar age (if your Wikipedia biography is accurate) and we have a trunkful of material to reflect on gained by being with music and musicians for so long. Another advantage of our age is that, as you point out, we have less time, and therefore less sympathy, for nonsense. What a delightful state!
“I am learning that getting from note to note and phrase to phrase with integrity, intelligence, and true heartfelt expression is all that matters.” This approach puts dogma in its place; out the window.
I am working to open the window as well. It is all that matters. All the rest is commentary.
Do you have one special performance in your memory where the qualities of “integrity, intelligence and heartfelt expression” all came together in one inimitable and sublime mix? Here is mine: In my school teaching days I once arranged an Andante movement from a Haydn Baryton trio for a group of “advanced’ Fifth-Graders. They needed to be challenged. Their intelligence: more than enough technique to play the notes with fluency and fine intonation. Their integrity: that they were, at 10 years of age, not yet burdened by pretension and dubious mannerisms. Their heartfelt expression? Just a touch of their newly-learned vibratos now and again when they felt like it; for no other reason that newly-learned vibrato now and again is jolly fun to do.
Their performance reflected the trinity you list. The resultant sounds were so exquisite that I do believe Haydn himself made the trip from wherever he was to peek through the window and hear his art.
It was the window that didn’t need to be opened.
Thank you for sharing your experience with Haydn! He has been “peeping through windows” a few times! One of my best Haydn experiences was sight reading the viola part of “The Seasons” in a performance. I wrote about on this blog a few years ago. If you search for the words “exalted rains” you will find it. Real musical experiences with kids are too numerous to list, but those are what keep me inspired and keep my faith in music as the central force for good alive.
Oops! Exalted reigns!
What a wonderful and memorable adventure. I have never had the good fortune to be part of a Haydn Oratorio performance. In these late times, the sad reality is that now I never will. But I am fortunate to be alive, to have the scores, and access to a multitude of performances; three essentials to listening and repairing this gap in my Haydnphilia. . Do you have a favorite recorded version for me to start with?
So...what is the most memorable Haydn experience that I experienced, not as a member of an audience, but as a player? If memory serves, I may have shared this with you years ago….but at the risk of being a redundant violist….here you go:
Lately it is not an entire quartet that I remember after an evening of chamber music. It is a few measures here and there that are memorable and give reason to keep going. There is much to praise in the music of the great 18th and 19th century string quartets. The integrity of their structure. The richness and diversity of their harmonic language. But I have reached a point where musical incidents and details are what, for me, count the most. A simple approach perhaps...but it works for me. I will leave the structure and harmonic issues to musicologists and theorists. I'm just a simple viola player.
Last night the "incident" was about eight seconds of music towards the end of the first movement of Haydn's Opus 76 no. 1. The second subject of this movement is particularly tuneful. When it returns after the recapitulation is is accompanied in the cello by a drone. Charming enough. But when that second subject repeats itself and that rustic drone happens again, the drone itself is ornamented by the addition of a grace note at the begining of each measure. For me it is a completely inimitable moment; an ormamental touch delightful beyond measure. The cellist, who has played this music with me before must have remembered how fond I am of this grace-note ornamented drone. Because as she played those simple grace-notes, she briefly took her eyes off the page and gave me a smile.
A fine moment... Haydn, a drone, a scattering of grace note, and a cellist's smile.
I think that we should continue this discussion "off-blog." Please send me your email address, and I will be happy to discuss Haydn quartets with you at great length!
Will do!
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