Any Old Way You Play It
Some of you may ask a very simple question about classical music…what is so great about music that is so traditional that all classical musicians have to learn to play the same pieces, which if you called them cliches would be cliche in and of itself?
The answer is…well, stunning. The same old pieces can sound really different in the hands of very distinct players. There are many types of “good” to chose from. There’s authentic, which usually comes from players using period instruments with interpretations that are usually no frill, which I find refreshing. There’s elegant, which is when a piece is played to polite perfection. There’s bombastic, which is what you get when performers try to squeeze every last ounce of emotion from music…in two word, Leonard Bernstein. Then there’s outrageous, a performance that is so wrong but is actually interesting.
My cousin was starting to learn piano just a couple of years ago and recorded his version of the Bach Partita No.1 Gigue. It was exceeding slow but very steady and controlled and calming to me. I’d listen to this quite often even though most recordings have this piece played at much faster tempos…I mean literally night and day.
Yet even though the gigue may not be meant to be this solemn introspective work, I just enjoy it so much. Isn’t it a testament to Bach that you could slow down his music to a micro level and still get something out of it? In fact, in this slow version I hear the seeds of Beethoven’s Moonlight sonata. Sometimes wrong can be right…and that’s how classical music lives on.
Bach, Partita No. 1 Gigue - Gustav Leonhardt BUY
Bach, Partita No. 1 Gigue - Xin Chen
February 8th, 2007 at 8:46 am
good post.