The Six Partitas - Koopman

Introduction

I know I covered this album as part of my Bachcast series podcast, but I was surprised I had never reviewed this album. It was released by Koopman on Challenge Classics/Antoine Marchand in December 2012. I can’t believe I’ve lived with this album for so long! (Seems like yesterday, but I am assuming Roon isn’t lying to me about when it was added to my collection.)

I remember watching a video interview of Mr. Koopman some months ago where he talked about his approach to performance, and he said something to the effect of being purposeful about injecting his own particular style and creativity into his performances. I took this to mean he was trying to innovate, and he spoke to encouraging students to do the same. I think the question was in relation to his study with Gustav Leonhardt.

I thought of Koopman, actually, in a recent video I watched of David Horowitz from ClassicsToday about the best Goldeberg recording on harpsichord, for which he chose the 1981 recording by Trevor Pinnock. In his discussion he spoke to Bach putting in all the ornaments that are required, and how he didn’t want other musicians mucking up his music with adding additional ornaments (not sure he said mucking but it hopefully conveys the meaning). He also mentioned that improvising a bit would be okay for repeats.

Koopman by any stretch is not guided by whatever rules Horowitz thinks Bach left for performers to follow in terms of adding ornamentation to his music. That said, there are people today who feel that Koopman’s interpretations are too overwrought, with too much additional fodder added to what is otherwise already well and good.

Listen to the Menuets from the first partita, BWV 825, for just how much Koopman is willing to mess with the music, even changing the feeling of the beat in the B section of the first menuet!

So I will say this at the outset: Koopman is not satisfied with just playing what’s on the page. Instead, his performances are highly personal and for me, original. The recorded sound on this album is very close, capturing every detail of his instrument by Willem Kroesbergen, one of the most delicious harpsichords, I think, on recorded media. Oh, I don’t know if I can say that. There are many great instruments out there, but yeah, this one tickles me the right way.

Listening Notes

1. The opening to BWV 826: I’m not sure the tuning is as tight as it could be? He’s using both an 8’ and 4’ set at the beginning, which doesn’t seem as popular in recordings today as it was in earlier recordings, I can’t say for sure, but I like the opening’s intensity compared to the more intimate voicings as we get as he traverses the first movement, Sinfonia.
2. The Rondeaux in BWV 826: I’m reminded at what a wicked little piece this is. I love how in the second part how he gives us the feeling of walking along the street with a little sway in our step. And that ending? How he just slows a bit?
3. The Capriccio in BWV 826: How he ornaments the first statement going right in? Gutsy! And this piece is just one of many in this suite that requires me to say how good his instrument sounds in the lower register in this key of C minor. All his ornaments is surely capricious and for that, I love it.
4. The Toccata from the great sixth partita, BWV 830. The opening reminds me that Koopman is also an organist of the first order. But after the sweeping dramatic opening, the faster parts could not go so quickly in a church. But his pauses? It allows us to revel in the sound of the acoustic. This is something an organist would do, I think. And it works here just as well. Then we get to the fugal part, and holy smokes, he takes off with it in a way I can’t remember another harpsichordist doing. The voicing of the instrument, again, superb. There’s so much going on when the piece is played this quickly. It pushes the emotional intensity to the max. And I type this now with glassy eyes.
5. The Air from the same partita, BWV 830. Once he gets into his groove, there’s no stopping him, no matter how much he decorates Bach’s inventions. If this piece represented man, he’d have a feather in his cap and a jeweled walking stick in his grip.
6. The Gigue in BWV 830 is, as I wrote earlier in the Tristano review, an out-there piece, given the theme and how disjointed it is. I mean, think of what an audience in 1730 would have thought of such a theme, it’s a statement, for sure, and that it ends the set? I can’t help but think Bach was daring for ending his collection with such a theme. Koopman ornaments this theme too, and it’s all the more delightful for as many times as you’ve heard it without these bonuses.
7. The Sarabande from the fourth partita, BWV 828, is a challenging piece, I think. The way he pauses like that after the first statement? Reveling in that figure and its beauty? Wow. I like the approach. For me it lets us admire the scent of the rose for a really good sniff.
8. The opening of the Praeambulum in BWV 829, just, yeah, awesome. Good bass weight in the instrument to make that chord ring.
9. For all the regal associations we might make with so many of these dances, the Passepied from BWV 829 seems homey and quaint in comparison, showing us Bach’s humble place in the world as a servant of God. It’s a tender number that Koopman manages to infuse with humanity, I think, ever so playful in a few spots. His interpretation highlights the charm of this dance.
10. In the Fantasia that opens BWV 827, we go head first into something without any introduction. It’s contrapuntal nature is a little strange, I think, for a suite’s opening. And it’s that oddity that makes the work unique. But it’s not a fugue, per se, right? In some ways it works like a longform Invention. How one starts this piece I think is important, as far as how you grab one’s attention. Koopman doesn’t take it on like a maverick 20-something, out to prove his meddle at the keyboard, but he also doesn’t push it lightly. I think it’s a good compromise for what I imagine for Bach was designed to be an attention-getter.

Understanding the Partitas (and maybe this recording)

Bach’s partitas are above all else, his dissertation on the keyboard suite, which could have been played on the harpsichord, clavichord, or the fortepiano in his time. They do, in so many ways look backward, but they are also chock-full of so many interesting themes and contemporary devices. Stylistically, they rarely look forward to the style that his sons would be surrounded by, but having the desire to publish them, Bach had to have wanted the sum of his talents to live beyond his years. We of course don’t know this for sure; he may have been encouraged to put these out to find new employment, or to satisfy a newfound opportunity for money. We know they didn’t make him a rich man, but aren’t we all richer for having the opportunity to listen to them?

The six partitas are in total 41 movements, which is of course one of the Bach numbers (the inverse of 14, the sum of the letters of his surname (B=2, A=1, C=3, H=8). Just as he includes the musical theme for B-A-C-H in the Kunst der Fuga (which, incidentally, is believed why he used Fuga over Fugue, for the counting of numbers associated with the letters), I always find Bach’s care about symbolism with numbers interesting. It makes his musical solutions that more remarkable.

Ton Koopman in some ways mirrors Bach in his approach with this recording. While Bach undoubtedly made a statement with putting this collection of suites into the world, so does Koopman for his extraordinary performance of it. I feel Koopman’s own personal style is lit in every track of this album, all forty-one pieces. It’s as much an essay on how he believes one should play the harpsichord, if not the music of Bach. As I reflect again on the interview, it’s important that musicians have their own voice and I’ve long appreciated Koopman’s, as distinctive and dare I say it, how fun it is. I have enjoyed his Bach on the organ, but if I were to name just one album that sums up his personality, I think it would have to be this one.

And for that I hold it in highest regard. While I welcome other recordings of the Six Partitas to come, this one for me I doubt will fall from always being my favorite.

But why did they put Jean-Féry Rebel on the cover?