Interview with Benjamin Alard about Johann Sebastian Bach | EUROtoday

Mr. Alard, “Johann Sebastian Bach – The Complete Works for Keyboard” sounds monumental given the sheer variety of his keyboard works, but in addition as if there have to be all types of issues on this route for a composer of his reputation and after over 100 years of recording growth?

“All sorts of things” would possibly even be an understatement. There is just no skilled and even semi-professional organist or pianist who doesn’t have some Bach works of their program; The variety of recordings of the “Well-Tempered Clavier”, for instance, is definitely within the three-digit vary. . .

. . . and there are a variety of full organ cycles in addition to ones for smaller keyboard devices, however apparently by no means each from a single supply, as you propose to do?

To be trustworthy: I simply do not know whether or not earlier initiatives exist or have at the very least been began in some unspecified time in the future. Helmut Walcha, Gustav Leonhardt or Ton Koopman, for instance: These have been and are all colleagues who performed each teams of devices and likewise introduced recordings, however maybe not with the intention of a whole presentation in a uniform format. It could also be that, particularly with the flood of particular person recordings, the transfer in the direction of the encyclopedic has grown with the intention to have this mountain of bigger and smaller compositions obtainable in a whole and clear method in some unspecified time in the future.

And when would possibly that time come in your collection?

We began virtually eight years in the past and are actually on the eleventh cassette; Most of them comprise three CDs, in distinctive circumstances two or 4. It will most likely find yourself at 17 or 18 episodes by the tip of this decade. We – I’m speaking primarily about my producer and recording supervisor Alban Moraud and I – consciously go away so much free as a result of there are all the time new findings from analysis and we additionally wish to hold the likelihood open to incorporate works from the encircling space or, the place that is apparent, vocal voices and corresponding devices; So you must suppose encyclopedically, however not puritanically. But our firm has now reached its peak.

Analogous to the apex of Bach’s artistic biography within the Köthen years, to which you will have devoted your self in the previous couple of episodes. So, so to talk, they’re getting older along with Bach – albeit in quick movement – which can be seen within the cowl photographs.

The determination to construction all the challenge chronologically was apparent, however not the one potential one. It appeared essential to me to have the ability to perceive Bach’s developments whereas listening rigorously. But these aren’t straight paths from the decrease or extra immature to the upper – and furthermore not solely these of Bach, but in addition my very own as his interpreter. For instance, in my profession thus far I’ve typically not performed the Goldberg Variations for 2 years in any respect, however then once more in very shut succession, partly on the harpsichord, partly on the organ – and now the time is approaching when I’ll combine them into this main challenge in maybe a modified model, which I’m presently nonetheless enthusiastic about. For me, dwelling recordings embody the acceptance {that a} piece might be approached fully in a different way 5 years later after which sound correspondingly totally different.

What would then presumably additionally apply to the repertoire of your first recordings for this complete assortment?

Yes, that is true. Every rehearsal of an earlier interpretation, but in addition each new interpretation, could be a step in the direction of additional growth and on the similar time a gaining of distance, in order that after a when you can encounter a piece once more as if it have been fully new to you. Snapshots are fastened: rigorously thought-out, extremely dedicated ones, after all – however nonetheless solely documentation of a sure stage.

That feels like a form of dilemma, particularly with a challenge as demanding and, so to talk, pattern-defining as this whole recording with maybe 60 hours of music. In the tip you could possibly begin over again?

Exactly. But what I attempt to do, and maybe have discovered higher in the middle of earlier recordings, is to convey as a lot of the strain and spontaneity of a stay live performance into these crystallized snapshots as potential, to not play properly, appropriately and defensively, however with this typically borderline, even dangerous depth of a direct encounter with the viewers.

Wouldn’t direct stay recordings be a potential choice?

We’ve considered it, and I do not wish to fully rule it out for what’s to come back. But after all, regardless of our very totally different recording rooms and devices thus far, it is about one thing like a homogeneous sound design and likewise about questions of finance and scheduling – and we might nonetheless solely know afterwards whether or not a stay recording would solely be higher in my subjective opinion or really additionally for the listeners. We threw ourselves into this challenge in 2018 with nice depth and with out a lot advance discover, then Corona threw brakes in the best way; Now we’ve got the prospect to let it develop calmly and confidently to the tip and, if issues go effectively, to proceed to develop with it.

Which, it appears, is all the time related to being open to experimentation for you. For instance, you not solely recorded the primary a part of the “Well-Tempered Clavier” (WK) in a special order than the standard order within the Bach catalog of works, but in addition on a three-manual harpsichord, which, with its 5 strings and 6 registers, has extra sound mixtures than every other instrument that has come right down to us from Bach’s time. . .

. . . and whose existence was unimaginable to me only a few years in the past. There was a tip that this instrument, which had already been “welcomed” by Wanda Landowska after 1900, had now discovered its strategy to Provins – a city with a inhabitants of twelve thousand folks east of Paris – through an English personal assortment; and that is the place we really discovered it after which took the recording proper there. Built in Hamburg in 1740 by Hieronymus Albrecht Hass and possibly supposed for the Spanish queen, whose keyboard trainer was Domenico Scarlatti, it’s a actually “royal” work whose richness of coloration is nearer to an organ than to the acquainted harpsichord sound. With such new instrumental experiences you additionally change into freer once more in terms of the compositions themselves – and this in flip made it simpler to determine to not proceed with C minor after the introductory C main pair (BWV 846), however to pursue a special path that runs via thirds and subdominant relationships: C, F, d, G, e, A – these are the primary six preludes and fugues in my recording, and maybe some listeners may even uncover them The CD creates new, enticing tonal relationships in such a sequence. What may contribute to that is that I tune my devices myself with the purpose of getting actually totally different key characters, which is, so to talk, the conceptual core of the “well-tempered piano” – as a result of in my understanding “well-tempered” signifies that though all keys might be performed, not all intervals are precisely the identical measurement in a mathematical sense.

You play on numerous organs, harpsichords and clavichords with or without a pedal, you also have a claviciterium – a form of vertically opened harpsichord, of which solely only a few examples stay – in your program and also you typically change to unfamiliar sound areas, for instance if you convey the trio sonatas which might be usually performed on the organ (and by you earlier than) utilizing the harpsichord and clavichord. In the pursuits of authenticity, are you on the lookout for devices or replicas that Bach himself might need identified?

Absolutely. You simply should not see it too narrowly. We solely have a patchy data of his actual devices on the time. So it is extra about researching which sounds he might need encountered in such a method that they immediately influenced his composing, and likewise concerning the contexts during which his works have been created – for instance, that some issues, just like the piano booklet for his son Wilhelm Friedemann, weren’t even supposed for publication. This belongs on an intimate, home instrument; I’m utilizing a clavichord from 1763, which Bach virtually could not have skilled – however he already lived within the midst of comparable sounds and wrote these little miniatures primarily based on such experiences.

But you even used trendy devices for the organs. . .

In the primary few episodes I initially focused on Andreas Silbermann and the duplicate of a Schnitger organ, however sure: the Blumenroeder organ within the Temple du Foyer de l’Âme in Paris, which you will be considering of, is a contemporary work by a then nonetheless very younger Alsatian firm. But firstly it’s designed within the Saxon fashion, with which Bach is acquainted, however which was fully new to the Parisian organ panorama fifteen years in the past. And secondly, it’s in a Protestant church. . .

Yes, critically: taking part in this a part of the recordings on quasi-Protestant soil was merely essential to me. With and round Bach, not all the things might be resolved rationally – and it does not must be. For instance, if I simply talked about a clavichord as an instrument for Wilhelm Friedemann’s piano booklet, then its creator, Johann Adolf Hass, was a son of Hieronymus Albrecht Hass, to whom we owe the three-manual harpsichord in Provins, on which I recorded the primary quantity of the “WK”. So: Father and son Hass construct devices one era aside which might be precisely appropriate for father and son Bach. I do not simply see one thing like this as a mere curiosity, but it surely additionally shapes my creative considering, via no matter channels. There are numerous – and new – approaches to Bach particularly each decade. What makes it distinctive is that it all the time has a core that may neither be attacked nor exhausted by a single interpretation – not even a preposterous one. But all the things round this core stays in movement and may all the time be rediscovered by anybody who approaches it – whatever the distance.