Daily Blague

For weeks, I've been listening to ancient recordings of Bach's Keyboard Concerti. They're not as old as I tend to think they are, but they completely antedate modern performance practices. And yet they sound great.

They were made in Vienna, in 1958 (the solo concerti) and 1964 (the multiples). I Solisti di Zagreb, led by Antonio Janigro, with Anton Heiller and others at the keys. How exotic that name sounds - "I Solisti di Zagreb." I can't tell if they're still going, because their site is in Croatian. I see that I have to do some research: were these Yugoslavian exiles working in Vienna, or did they travel to the West to make their recordings?

The recordings have a driven, dramatic quality that I like in this music. When the music's in the minor, I'm reminded of horror films. There was a time when I thought that the Concerto for Four Harpsichords in a, BWV 1065 would make the perfect score for a Dracula movie. (It's a transcription of the last concerto from Vivaldi's L'estro armonico.) There is a spooky quality that one doesn't ordinarily associate with Bach. Perhaps it's worth mentioning that I first heard these works at a time when harpsichords were beginning to be used by soundtrack composers.

I was crazy about harpsichords in those days, so much so that I built my own clavichord from a kit (harpsichord kits were too expensive). But I take the view nowadays that everyone from Bach to Mozart would have killed to play on Beethoven's Broadwood. Get this dinky tinkly thing out of here! Wanda Landowska, the pioneer of harpsichord revival, used to say, "You play Bach your way, and I'll play Bach his way." I think she's mistaken about what Bach's way would have been if he had been given the choice. The keyboard concerti, in any case, are the only works by Bach that I can bear to listen to on the harpsichord; conversely, I can't stand to hear them played on pianos. Clunk-eeee. But the piano is the only instrument for the solo keyboard music. I'd give anything to have Keith Jarrett's recording of the Goldberg Variations on a piano - if he would make it. (He has recorded the work on the harpsichord.) His piano recording of several of Handel's keyboard suites is, to my mind, the gold standard of Taste.

Ah, here's the movement that's playing when Michael Caine rams Barbara Hershey up against the record player, making a frightful scratch (Hannah and Her Sisters).

As I think I've mentioned elsewhere, MHS has made these recordings available