Rousset - Bach Complete Toccatas
For many years my go-to harpsichord rendition of the Bach Toccatas was the edition on Virgin Veritas by Pierre Hantaï. In this edition, labeled The Complete Toccatas, which includes excellent historical notes by Peter Wollny, the “six” toccatas mentioned in Bach’s obituary are joined by the seventh in G, BWV 916. The notes go into some detail about the history of the works’ reception, suggesting that early writers were somewhat confused by their form and didn’t see the connection to Buxtehude and the earlier tradition that these “young” works by Bach had. (For what it's worth, most recordings today include all seven works.)
Like the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, I’ve long admired these pieces for their flights of fancy inter-woven between contrapuntal expositions. I see clearly these as being distinct stylistic idioms, one that has to be felt and another that requires some particularly strong sense of pulse and technical regularity.
I found Rousset’s recording of Die Kunst der Fuga BWV 1080 perhaps too lacking in feeling. But in this recording of the Toccatas, I think there is an admirable balance between the free and what I might as otherwise call the fugal, at least for alliterative indulgences.
It is difficult to not see these pieces as virtuosic in nature, to the extent that they allow the performer to demonstrate their mastery of the instrument in multiple ways. Time and time again in this recording I admired Rousset’s choices in registration, using a double keyboarded instrument.
As what has become usual for Rousset’s recordings, he sticks to using historical instruments and in this case the instrument used is German in origin, from a private collection. Further details about the instrument or the tuning used are not provided however the unequally-tempered tuning used does allow us to venture into some interesting territories in the F-sharp minor work (BWV 910). (I can’t personally decide why one would write a piece of music in this key, which speaks to my poor keyboard skills, but one has to think Bach wanted to exploit the harmonic character of the key in some way, which to my ears Rousset is apt to indulge.)
Among my favorite of these pieces includes the D-minor and G-minor works. In each Rousset adopts relatively swift tempi, which is my style. However there are a few parts in which I would have welcomed a little more lingering in what I might call the “connective” material between sections. Rousset moves things along without any desire to meander, instead he pushes on. During the dotted-rhythm section in the later part of the G-minor work, he takes things I believe at a really nice tempo. I’ve heard it much faster (and slower) and this seems to be well-intentioned with a good effect. The final runs in the G minor take advantage of the availability of two manuals for dynamic contrast.
It’s hard not to hear the impact the organ had on Bach’s compositional art in the opening movement of the Toccata in G, BWV 916. Like the aforementioned section in the G-minor toccata, I praise Rousset’s choice of tempo for the G major’s Presto, not being too fast. The chosen tempo gives us a sense of what the piece might sound like given the full power of a church organ. The final fugue showcases Rousset’s ability for mechanical precision.
Two editions worth auditioning for comparison include the BIS recording by Maasaki Suzuki and the Hyperion recording by Mahan Esfahani. While I think Rousset’s instrument used on this recording is quite attractive sounding, I am also wooed by Suzuki’s own instrument’s sound even more. While less enamored by Esfahani’s own instrument’s sound and sixteen-foot register, which he uses in some sections, his playing is the more interesting, personality-wise, whether its for dramatic effect or his introduction of his own ornamentation. And of course I can’t forget the heroic effort made in Enrico Baiano’s recording, reviewed here earlier.
I ended my assessment of this new album with the E-minor toccata under Rousset’s fingers, trying to imagine what a young, almost teenaged Bach would do with this piece. There’s a bit of cockiness one can nearly detect in the first two sections. I give credit to Rousset for indulging this illusion for me.
As ever, Rousset is among the tidiest of players. This album is no different in its approach, nor should you expect something unusual if you follow Rousset’s prodigious output.
For those who aren’t HIPP nerds, there is a sentiment that developed in the rediscovery of historical performance practice that one should not inject ideas into an interpretation that does not have a basis in-text. The thinking is, it’s really the only thing we have to go on, and anything else you might inject into the music is, well, foreign to it. This gets more complicated, of course, when you realize that there were performance issues that stem from a practice that was illustrated in treatises and manuals that may or may not have been adopted or used by the musician in question who left us their scores.
Injecting feeling into music was somewhat rejected at the start of the movement; it’s why some described “authentic interpretations” to be stale, academic, and lacking warmth, to use just a few accusations. It’s the type of thing, to use an example, András Schiff might be seen sharing with a student in a masterclass: “listen, listen, it goes like this…” and then he might use his hand and voice to show you (and the student) how he thinks the phrase naturally should sound at the keyboard.
Of course, practices evolve. And that’s what I found so engaging with Baiano’s recording.
I can’t say what Rousset’s own philosophy is around historical practice, and in the case of Bach’s toccatas, there are no Bach autographs. But I get the sense that he’s more akin to sticking to what was left behind in ink and paper. It’s why you see some HIPP interpreters use facsimiles of the original scores; for Bach in particular, some interpret the flow and shape of his connecting lines for eighth and sixteenth notes as indications on how to phrase the music.
I ultimately probably prefer, in this case, the approach by Suzuki, which for me is a little more flexible in approach. But I also witnessed in this recording what benefits can be had when we present the music as it’s written, without extraordinary commentary from the artist’s fingers.
Of course there are no winners in this game. This is a most competent recording and we are all blessed to have these variations and their variety in interpretation to enjoy, especially so in such a rich tapestry of sound that Bach left us in these works.
