 |
| Prof. Michael Tsalka (Timothy K. Hamilton) |
The circumstances leading to Michael
Tsalka's recently issued CD "Bachian Elegies - Musical Meditations for
Uncertain Times" take us back to 2022. In the liner notes, Prof. Tsalka
writes that the "repertoire for the … album was devised during some of the
darkest days of the pandemic…", with J.S.Bach's music serving as "a
constant source of solace…"
The disc's two opening works are performed
on a Johann Zohler fortepiano (Brünn, c.1805). Bach's Chorale Prelude for Organ
"Erbarme dich mein, O Herre Gott" (O God, be merciful to me) BWV 721
(c.1704), is unique (perhaps experimental?) in Bach's chorale prelude oeuvre,
due to its straightforward arrangement and lack of counterpoint. Tsalka's
reading of the prelude preserves its reflective character, the gentle chorale
melody sounding articulately above the harmonic dimension of repeated four- and
five-voiced chords, the latter's marvellously unexpected turns adding Bach's
own layer of liturgical meaning.
Then to another work unique in Bach’s
output, one from his early youth and student years (c.1700-1710). The
"Capriccio sopra la lontananza del suo fratello dilettissimo"
(Capriccio on the departure of his most beloved brother) is a secular, programmatic
work (Bach's only piece of programme music), a genre popular in
the 17th- and 18th centuries. A farewell to Bach's older brother, oboist Johann
Jakob, leaving in 1704 to join the band of the Swedish king, Charles XII, or
possibly to a friend, it comprises six short, imaginatively-titled movements.
Guiding the listener through the extra-musical recountal, from sentiments and
warnings on the part of the traveller's friends, to their acceptance of the situation, their farewell gestures and to the arrival of the postal coach, its horn evoked
by downward octave leaps, Tsalka's playing is engaging. It addresses the
various different aspects of the piece - the vivid (almost verbal) narrative,
its range of emotions, but also the piece's variety of textures and
opportunities for ornamentation, the use of different registers (movement
5), with the mournful Adagissimo (passacaglia), endowed with symbolically
falling seconds, requiring the keyboard player to fill in its figured bass.
A master recycler, Bach rearranged some of
his own pieces to use in other works. Made at the request of Prince Johann
Ernst von Sachsen-Weimar, as well as supplying good clavier music for Bach's
own performances, the transcriptions for organ and harpsichord of Italian and
Italianate concertos of other composers (mostly of Antonio Vivaldi) date from
the composer's second period at the Weimar court (1708–1717) and represent
Bach's introduction to this new idiom. Tsalka's performance of Keyboard
Concerto in G major, BWV 973 on harpsichord (after Vivaldi's Violin Concerto in
G major, RV 299) sweeps the listener into the spectrum of the diverse,
imaginative textures and techniques Bach employs in order to transform
Vivaldi’s music into new keyboard works. Splendidly displaying the concerto's
dynamic virtuosity, Tsalka's buoyant, well-organized, sparkling playing of
the outer movements is exhilarating, his cantabile reading of the slow,
reflective E minor movement enriched by ornamental effects afforded by the keyboard's
action capacity.
Still on the subject of recycling, the Chaconne from J.S.Bach's Partita for Violin No.2 in D minor, BWV 1004, has been a vehicle for a number of keyboard (and other) transcriptions, to mention those of Brahms, Busoni and, more recently, that of French harpsichordist Jean Rondeau. Performing on a Thomas Power double manual harpsichord (Johannes Ruckers 1638), Prof. Tsalka, however, chooses to play Jacques Drillon's 1950s transcription. Prior to hearing the performance of this legendary piece on harpsichord, the challenge for me was to think "keyboard" and not remain locked into the familiar violin sound association. However, from the very first notes of the Chaconne's majestic, momentous opening statement, my dilemma was whisked away. Tsalka's performance gave cognizant and emotionally powerful expression to the piece, here sounding totally natural to the harpsichord. Each variation offered different textures, different features and comprehensive use of the instrument's range. Double- and triple stopping were recast into flamboyant, brilliant keyboard figures, the play of registers highlighted moments of dialogue, there were bold, expansive, exciting surges of arpeggiation, chordal textures and intricate ornamentation, then to give way to some intimate moments and an economic sprinkling of "notes inégales". Referred to by violinist Joshua Bell as “not just one of the greatest pieces of music ever written, but one of the greatest achievements of any man in history", Tsalka's masterful playing of the D minor Chaconne is gripping, giving credit to Drillon's keyboard vision.
As to Tsalka's rendition of Prelude and
Fugue No.24 in B minor from Book II of J.S.Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, the
pieces concluding the WTC I and II collections, the artist invites the musical
score itself to explain the enigmatic pair. His playing of the tranquil Prelude
is sincere, ordered and unaffected, its notated gruppetto embellishments woven
through the fabric of underlying B-minor Baroque-associated melancholy, then to
sign out with tension-filled chords. The Fugue's gentle, passepied rhythm, its
trills and leaps, take the listener into Bach's mystical non-verbal world of
musical perfection.
Attesting to this same mystical non-verbal
world of musical perfection is Bach's Art of Fugue BWV 1080. Concluding the
mammoth work, the Fuga a 3 Soggetti (Fugue in Three Subjects), Contrapunctus 14,
also referred to as the "Unfinished Fugue", leaves many
presumptions and theories unanswered. Although no specific instrumentation is
indicated in the general manuscript, the Fuga a 3 Soggetti is written in keyboard
notation, leading one to the conjecture that the Art of Fugue was possibly
meant for the harpsichord. This is convincingly demonstrated by Tsalka, whose
articulate, ceremonious and carefully detailed enquiry presents the piece's
fugal writing, its different themes becoming intertwined as the piece
progresses, the third of these representing Bach’s own name, as spelled out in
pitches. Tsalka's playing of this final monumental edifice, built of seemingly uncompromising material, directs
attention to its writing of unsurpassed beauty and refinement, to the composer's
uncannily organized mind and understanding of structure, but also to how
unorthodox and mystifying his music must have been in his own time, still
remaining so today. With the fugue's score breaking off abruptly in the middle
of its third section, at the only-partially written measure 239, Tsalka chooses
to allow the work to end at that point, an effect that never ceases to sound
jarring and disquieting.
Back to the fortepiano, with Michael Tsalka
performing Fantasia in F sharp minor, Wq.67, of Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. A
highly individual and original character, indeed, the quirkiest of Johann
Sebastian's composer sons, Carl Philipp’s keyboard music forms a unique body of
works, one without any equivalent in his day. He himself was renowned for his
extemporizations at the keyboard, claiming that the ability to improvise was
the most important indicator of a musician’s potential as a composer. In his
1753 publication "Versuch über die wahre Art das Clavier zu spielen"
(Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments), he deals specifically
with the fantasy as a compositional form. Composed only a year before the
composer's death, the F sharp Fantasia is one of his longest works in this
genre. Enlisting a flexible sense of tempo and meter, Tsalka juggles the
piece's three main motifs with the skill of a quick-change artist. Despite
giving thrilling energy to the work's pizzazzy technical aspects (of which
there are several), he nevertheless highlights the emotional impact of C.P.E.'s
complex writing and mercurial moods, and not without the wink of an eye. Timing
is of the essence, as Tsalka discerningly collates the seemingly incongruous
elements into a performance to keep the listener at the edge of his seat.
With some of the repertoire here being
later or final works of Johann Sebastian or Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, Prof.
Tsalka concludes the disc's impressive line-up with J.S.Bach's chorale prelude
"Vor deinen Thron tret’ ich hiermit" (Before Thy throne I now appear)
BWV 668a. During his final illness, Bach is said to have been composing new
works and revising earlier ones, with some assistance in the writing down of
them, since he had lost his sight. Also known as "Wenn wir in höchsten
Nöten sein" (When we are in the greatest need), and referred to as the
"deathbed chorale," "Vor deinen Thron tret’ ich hiermit" is
the last of the eighteen Leipziger Chorale arrangements (a misleading title.
The set originally comprised 17 pieces, with "Vor deinen Thron tret
ich" having been added to Bach’s manuscript later on.) It was also
published after Bach's death as the final piece of the "Art of the
Fugue", providing some closure for that work, whose intended finale had
been left incomplete. The harpsichord, by nature, offers fewer timbral contrasts
than the pipe organ; Tsalka's articulate playing of the chorale setting, however, throws light on how the lower
voices introduce the melody in diminution, in normal form and in inversion, and
on Bach's significant use of chromaticism. Once again, his playing
underscores Bach's typically tight construction.
In his program notes, Michael Tsalka refers
to Bach's music as encompassing "the entire gamut of human experience and
emotion, from the beautiful, the uplifting and the spiritual transcendent to
the difficult, the tragic and the horrific." "Bachian
Elegies" was recorded September 28th-30th 2024 in Bergen (North Holland) for
the paladino music label. A very fine, thought-provoking recording, it remains
as relevant as ever, as we continue to live in uncertain times
No comments:
Post a Comment