Bachcast - biberfan

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The composer Johannes Brahms, on Bach’s fifth movement of his second partita for solo violin:

On one stave, for a small instrument, the man writes a whole world of the deepest thoughts and most powerful feelings. If I imagined that I could have created, even conceived the piece, I am quite certain that the excess of excitement and earth-shattering experience would have driven me out of my mind. If one doesn’t have the greatest violinist around, then it is well the most beautiful pleasure to simply listen to its sound in one’s mind.

I have been almost obsessively listening to this piece for the past six weeks. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but I should back up and provide context. I’ve been listening to this piece for over half my life and am quite familiar with it. I know it, of course, as the version for solo violin. I’ve also enjoyed arrangements. It is difficult to state with certainty, but it is clearly at the top of any list enumerating Bach’s best-loved or most-celebrated pieces. I thought it deserved its own Bachcast episode, but in the tradition I’d already established, I also wanted to give insight into the four movements that precede it.

Today’s Samples:

The Ciaccona is the fifth movement of Bach’s d-minor partita for solo violin, preceded by an “Allemanda,” “Corrente,” “Sarabanda,” and a “Giga.” All these titles Bach writes in a flavor, no doubt, referencing the place where violin performance was most revered: Italy. What’s unique about this movement is that it is extra-long in comparison to the other movements. In the recording by Isabelle Faust (Harmonia Mundi, 2010), the movements are timed as such:

Twelve and a half minutes is on the faster side, actually. Some performances go beyond fourteen minutes, and Paul Galbraith, who performs the piece on guitar, takes nearly twenty minutes to perform the piece.

The Chaconne, using the French spelling, is a dance form in 3. Bach’s version is not quite in the same flavor that we know many chaconnes, calling some to consider it more a passacaglia. No matter the label we use, it is noteworthy for a repeating bass line, also called an ostinato. In one of my favorite arrangements, Ensemble Caprice performs the work with two recorders and bass. In effect they make it a piece for trio. Yet Bach wrote it for a single violin. It’s one of the reasons why the piece is so celebrated: with just one instrument Bach writes in a highly-complex structure.

I often consider Biber’s last Rosenkranz sonata, the so-called “Guardian Angel” sonatas, as an predecessor to Bach’s Ciaccona. It too uses a similar descending four note theme as a bass. And it goes through a number of twists and turns, conveying a number of significant emotions to the listener. Biber’s is listed as a “Passacaglia.” Von Westhoff, too, wrote solo violin works before Bach. But it’s the Biber that, for me at least, matches the style of Bach’s Ciaccona.

Some believe that Bach’s Ciaccona is programmatic, in the sense that it is related to the death of his first wife, Maria Barbara. We do know the death of Mrs. Bach took place “around” the time of composition of these pieces. Some have gone so far as to call it a “tombeau,” a piece of remembrance of his dead wife. Imagine the surprise when a violinist/professor writes that she’s found the pieces Bach used as “material” for the Ciaccona, based upon several hymn tunes. When we look at Bach’s music and his life, it’s difficult to separate him from his religion.

In fact, it was because of recordings of this new discovery, church tunes sung over Bach’s Ciaccona that I became especially interested in the piece, listening to it over and over, one performance after another.

The thing is, whether or not Bach used material to construct the piece, he never left us any instruction or clue that we should hear the two together, a sung line, chorale, or hymn, over an instrumental piece. In Moreno’s De Occulta Philosophia, I found the juxtaposition of an arrangement for lute and two vocalists disarming, something, frankly, I didn’t want to hear again.

In the Hilliard Ensemble’s reading with violinist Chrisoph Poppen, the musical result was improved, but the whole idea, again, was flawed. It would be, as if, we heard the Biber piece (in G min) and the Bach piece (in D min) at the same time, as if we were walking outside the practice rooms at a music conservatory. They really don’t belong together, but, it might be argued, one influenced the other. What are we to gain in hearing Bach’s inspiration over top his finished masterpiece?

It’s a curiosity, I get it. But… I didn’t hear the point.

Until, that is, later.

The Hilliards precede the Ciaccona with a quote from Christ lag in Todesbanden, BWV 278. Fragments of the piece were discovered to be relevant throughout the Ciaconna. The theme? Death. Christ’s death. We don’t have to be detectives to connect the dots. Was Bach’s monumental piece some kind of mourning song for the loss of his wife?

The Hilliard Ensemble released an earlier album on the same label with jazz saxophonist Jan Gabarek. It took early Renaissance polyphony and turned it into new age. “Imagine if a jazz saxophonist joined a renaissance vocal ensemble, what could happen?”

I liked the CD despite its issues in historicism. But with Bach? My god! Don’t try to turn Bach on the baroque violin to new age!

I wasn’t minding the store. The piece was on, and I was thinking. About some pretty tough stuff. How my dad is dying. How I am over 700 miles away, and he’s in pain. On pain drugs. The piece is playing. I’m… unhappy. And then it hits. It all comes together and I erupt into a fountain of tears. Those Hilliards and their one-of-kind countertenor. Oh! David James! They got me.

No matter who is playing or arranging this piece it is hard not to sense its emotional depth and power. I hope in listening I exposed you to some first-rate recordings and illustrated some of the details that set them, and this music, apart.

Partita for Solo Violin in B minor, BWV 1002

On the surface, we have a four movement structure of “dance pieces” forming a baroque suite. Bach attaches to each a variation, or double. What’s interesting is Bach’s use of French and Italian language in describing these pieces. Not a Bourée, but a borea. Not a courante, but a corrente. Bach no doubt was channeling the Italian avant garde, when it came to violin writing. When dance suites were, in fact, dance suites, these doubles could be used to extend the dancing, in a very pragmatic way. In Bach’s hands, here however, the variations are not written for pragmatic concerns, they are are but the one example in the series of the six sonatas and partitas for Bach to demonstrate his mastery in writing variations. The challenge for the performer is to keep the pulse of the dance established in the preceding movement alive in the variation that contains more complexity in way of the phrases and number of notes.

Since Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas are so famous and so popular in the recorded canon, there are so many takes on how these dances can be performed. I look at these pairs as statements and counter-statements, the one containing the theme or compositional germ, and the second presenting the opportunity for the virtuoso to show off. The pairings in this way can be seen as written for the introvert and extrovert.

A lot of different versions of these work exist. I wanted you to get a sense of the differences among some strong contenders. I think the oldest recording is likely 1988 or 1989 by Perlman on EMI/Warner. Among my most favorite are the Kremer (modern violin) and Chris Thile (arrangement on mandolin).

Bach adopts a four-movement structure, positioning his fugue in second position. The fugue forces the performer to make some stylistic choices on how to render the accented chords that must be rolled across the strings.

How do you like vibrato? I like it when it's used as an ornament. I''m not a fan of any Baroque literature that is treated with a constant, regular vibrato. That said, I do like Kremer's apporach from a modern violinist's perspective.

The last movement is ripe for opportunities for accents of differnet levels, highighting the shape of the phrases. Huggett's recording for me is like a "zoomed-in" close up view with her approach; while it is not my favorite approach, I like how it makes me re-assess the music, thus helping me enjoy it even more deeply.

Also mentioned:

The opening to Bach's Well-tempered clavier is well known for a variety of reasons. In this episode, we compare multiple performances and I realize in so doing what an amazing amount of quality musical material is contained within. It is really though the different lenses of different performances that we can begin to appreciate the quality of Bach's writing.

N.B. Purchase of albums through the links above helps support this podcast.

Among the most revered music for solo violin are Bach’s Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin. Bach did play the violin, but not perhaps to the level he was known for at the keyboard, as an organist and harpsichordist. There is little doubt in my mind that his facility with playing the violin led to the character in his Sonatas and Partitas.

In this episode, we look at solo violin music not by Bach, as a sort of Baroque primer before we tackle Bach’s solo works in future episodes. The surviving catalog of works for solo violin is not extensive, and that leads us to believe that solo violin literature was something of a special genre. Instead, solo repertoire for any instrument is usually coupled with a basso continuo line. Excellent examples of this include the series we have just explored in this podcast, Bach’s Sonatas for violin and keyboard. Models such as those from Corelli would provide a violin line against a bass line, but in Bach we had something more significant: a written-out keyboard part that was no basso continuo; instead if was it’s own duet, a bass line and a right hand part that acted to provide a trio texture.

In the examples I provide in this podcast, we’ll hear harmony for the violin, but counterpoint, per se, we will not. Bowed string instruments (violin family, viols) all can harmonize through the playing of multiple strings at once, either sounding together, or when fingered with the left hand and rolled-across with the bow, playing an arpeggio. This technique appeared in more advanced works, and in the examples we hear, it helps to anchor the melodic material within a harmony, specifically because of the loss of a continuous bass.

It is my belief that if we are going to really understand how profound Bach’s 3 sonatas and 3 partitas for violin are, it’s helpful to know what came before and what was contemporaneous to Bach.

Bach composed a collection of preludes and fugues for keyboard instruments. Most famous is likely the collection entitled The Well-Tempered Clavier, two sets of preludes and fugues for 2 hands, 24 in each collection. For the organ, he also wrote pairs, and this episode’s piece fits into this category, the prelude specifically being an ostinato bass piece Bach calls a passacaglia.

BWV 659, written for organ, sets a well-liked piece by Bach, Nun komm, der Heiden Heiland within a construction of a melody with accompaniment. The piece can be traced back to Martin Luther, and before that, to Gregorian chant. It’s a particularly beautiful setting here, and in this podcast, we explore some “arrangements” which I think are very notable for their sonority, richness, and sensitivity.

Bach's sixth and final sonata for violin and harpsichord is organized in a very different format: it is flanked by two allegro movements in the key of G major, but the third movement at the "apex" of the sonata is for solo keyboard! The second and fourth feature a slower tempo and are written in a contrasting minor modality.

In the podcast I speculate why this is the case, and part of that speculation is fueled by the existence of additional movements that were supposedly part of an earlier construction of the piece.

Look for recordings that serve up "alternates," sometimes labeled as "BWV 1019a." They allow us to explore Bach's compositional journey, in a way, and we can also try programming our own versions of the sonata using playlists.

In this episode I chose Bach's last prelude-fugue pair from his first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier. The performance by Frederich Gulda is my favorite of this particular pair, and I link below to my previous writing on BWV 869.