Out With the New, In With the Old

The performance history of the works of Johann Sebastian Bach has had a fascinating and convoluted journey. These profoundly marvelous pieces were originally written either for meager commissions or to fulfill quotidian requirements in Bach’s desperate attempts to support his burgeoning family. After “old Bach” passed on, his music was relegated to the realm of nostalgia, his reputation as an organist and a large number of musical progeny basically all that survived.Once Felix Mendelssohn presented the St. Matthew Passion approximately 100 years after its composition, the Bach revival began. His precepts had already begun to live on hidden within the great harmonic tradition from Mozart (who had studied with Johann Christian in London) to Berg (who paid homage to a chorale in his very last effort, the Violin Concerto); it took a considerable amount of time for his individual works to enter the mainstream concert repertoire. In fact, Baroque music in general, despite its ubiquity on FM radio, is a rarity in the modern concert hall.For whatever reason, Christmas is the last refuge of the High Baroque, and virtually all of the music that one hears from Advent to Three Kings comes from the 17th and early 18th centuries. Some of this is, of course, inspired by religion: There is virtually never a performance of Messiah in the summer. In the case of Bach, although Schmieder’s catalogue lists many hundreds of works, what we encounter at this time of year and at every turn are the cantatas strung together as the “Christmas” oratorio and the lively and decidedly secular orchestral pieces written for the Margrave of Brandenburg.The Chamber Music Society of Lincoln Center, logically, presented a chamber version of these six majorkey compositions that should have been a joyous and exhilarating experience. Also logically, they began with number one, although, in retrospect, this might have been a bad decision. Arranging themselves in a “strings versus winds” configuration, presumably to evoke the concept of the consort, the resultant musical product was severely out of balance, the harmonies in the blown instruments heavily outweighing the melodies of the bowed. Normally reliable hornist William Purvis had a rather unsuccessful bout with the high register, written for a natural horn but unnaturally difficult to perform on a modern instrument. The askew balancing left this effort dominant over the fine legato playing of violinist Daniel Phillips.I am as much of a purist – or fundamentalist if one wishes to be pejorative about all of this – as the next fellow, except that my penchant is for the most updated forms of instrumentation. As a child, I always preferred the sophisticated versions of the Brandenburgs by the chamber orchestra assembled by Edwin Fischer, its opulent and unabashed use of the contemporary 88s creating much more frisson than is available from the more gentle keyboards of the period. This music cries out for suppressed crescendi, held in check to an almost orgasmic level before fruition, and the modern instrument simply is the preferable. The performance of the number five at Alice Tully was fine in and of itself, but harpsichordist John Gibbons simply did not have the proper tools to project that most exquisite of tensions.Having just sung the praises of modernism, I can’t very well complain about the exclusion of the E Flat trumpet in number two on grounds of authenticity, but the substitution of David Shifrin’s clarinet in the same key was simply ludicrous. The instrument was no more available to Bach than the modern piano and appeared clownish in this context – I couldn’t get the sound of our neighborhood ice-cream truck out of my head afterward. Gone was the magisterial fanfare and gravitas of the original and in its stead was an escapee from Haydn’s Toy Symphony. Perhaps Mr. Shifrin was confused: When Bach wished to indicate the use of the high trumpet, he occasionally employed the Italian term, which is clarino.Finally, the number three, which being all strings contained the most expertly blended sound of the afternoon, was taken at a tempo far beyond the capacity of the players to handle properly. Ani Kavafian was left to twist quickly in the wind in this one, forced to attempt various modern sliding techniques and glissandi just to stay on beat with her mates. Ms. Kavafian is one of New York’s treasures and, like many of these A-list performers, one of the very best chamber musicians in the world today, but even Paganini himself could not have enunciated clearly at this speed.The entire concert had an under-rehearsed feel to it, as if the pieces were worthy only of a cursory examination. The crowd too was unusual: There were several rather loud pontificators seated near me who took the opportunity to explain all of the subtleties that they thought they knew to their attentive dates. Occasionally, the music emanating from the stage was a bit too loud for me to make out every word, but I believe that when these armchair critics look back upon the event they will have to agree that this was not the Chamber Music Society’s finest two hours.“Holiday Bach: The Complete Brandenburg Concertos” will be continued December 21 at 7:30 p.m. (Lincoln Center, 212-875-5050).

Out With the New, In With the Old

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