One doesn't have to be "learned" to "know". Anybody with ears and the right focus can find out the same things without needing evidence, sources to quote, etc.
To many readers, however, asserting that you "know" something implies not only that you
do indeed "know" it but also that it can be "known" as it is a fact, whereas in this matter your view is inevitably based upon a personal subjective response with which not everyone else will agree.
The right pedal not only lengthens the tone: it changes its quality drastically. It "inflates" the tone, both horizontally and vertically.
Of course that is true - and writing fugues (or indeed anything else) for a piano whose right pedal does that is obviously a different matter to writing for a harpsichord or other keyboard instrument that does not have such a device but, to me, this not only enhances rather than detracts from the polyphonic ability of the piano but also raises all manner of new means of achieving contrapuntal clarity and balance in the hands of an expert and sensitive player.
Very different in many ways though Szymanowski's three piano sonatas are, the one thing that they have in common is that each concludes witha fugue; have a look at those fugues in the second and third sonatas and you should be able to see that these are excellent specimens of their type, for all that they would be impossible of execution without a right pedal.
Good ears and the will to focus are all that is required to "know". Do I really need to "prove" that using it at random to make Bach's music "playable" here and there necessarily corrupts and/or compromizes something essential?!
Have you stopped to think about the likewise very different tonal qualities of the organs of Bach's day and, say, the best of Cavaillé-Coll or the finest English Romantic instruments designed and made by Harrison & Harrison and Willis and, if so, what would you say about the suitability of Bach's organ fugues played on these more modern instruments? "Good" ears - "good" fugues; again, you're relying on a "good" deal of subjectivity here!
P.S.: The middle pedal was never the focus in this topic.
Well, it's been part of most grand pianos for a century and a quarter and, as you did not exclude it from your remarks, how could anyone reading what you wrote be expected to have advance knowledge that it did not embrace this device and its use? That said, what
do you think about it in the context of writing fugues for the piano?
Bach's works for keyboard are perfect in both form and content, not only in the core notes we have to play, but also in the harmonics/overtones created above the music that are the result (this can be heard, but I am confident that it can and will be proven in future with mathematical diagrams, but I am not qualified to do that).
But when played on a modern harpsichord and/or in different kinds of acoustic to those to which Bach himself would have been accustomed, those harmonics/overtones
et al that influence the overall tonal quality of what the listener hears also play a part in the nature of the results. Unless you believe that Bach's music should only ever be performed on insruments of Bach's time and of the kind with which he would personally have been familiar, your argument does not hold here - and if you
do believe that His music should be played only on those instruments that he knew, I would draw your attention to a remark once made by English composer Robert Simpson on this subject wherein he observed that we cannot listen to Bach's music today with the ears of his contemporaries because we have listened to Xenakis (now I've never heard Simpson mention Xenakis in any other context, but here he cites him to make a very valid and important point).
Besides, his music for keyboard also has certain spiritual qualities; it cures both the body and the soul. This is "good". All others coming after him do not have that balance in form and content in their works for keyboard, and are therefore at least a little less than "good".
Whilst I yield to no one in my admiration, respect and love for Bach (and remember Mauricio Kagel's remark that not all musicians believe in God but they all believe in J S Bach!), you really are onto fanciful thoughts here; I'm not even for one moment suggesting that you are wrong in principle, but to suggest that Bach's keyboard music (what about all of His other music?) "cures both the body and the soul" carries with it the implication that its listeners are somehow by definition physically and spiritually ill before listening - and whilst emulating Bach or being able to write a wonderfully as He did are respectively pointless and hopelessly impossible tasks, let's not forget that His example and influence stretches way beyond His own time and that, accordngly, his work has affected that of many so many later composers, from Mozart to - well, the present writer, if you like!
I never intended to accuse anyone after Bach of "incompetence", etc. On the contrary: they are often so smart and competent, that they miss the spiritual point in what they do with their intellect. One cannot pour just any old content into any old form and then tell oneself that the result must be "good". I can appreciate the "fugue" in the Hammerklavier, for example, for certain qualities of beauty, but certainly not for the fact that is a perfect fugue. It is simply too weird and grotesque to be just that. The same with the fugue in Liszt's sonata. While it has its function within that sonata, I cannot recognize that as more than just an attempt at writing a fugue.
Well, the principal point here, as earlier, is, of course, that not everyone will agree with you and that what you're putting forward here are views, not facts. Why would a Beethoven fugue not have "spiritual" qualities? (whatever they may be - and in order to discuss this intelligently and informatively you'd have to be able to analyse examples from that specific standpoint). Would the remarks that you make about the
Hammerklavier fugue apply equally, for example, to the fugal first movement of Beethoven's C# minor quartet?
Like everything else in life, fugues move on and, again like everything else in life, diversity always increases - witness the fact that, while Boulez was writing his Second Piano Sonata, his elder compatriot Dutilleux was writing fugues (albeit as compositional exercises). Let's also not forget that fugue was around long before Bach and that, whilst His many examples are truly astonishing, they are themselves very different in character to anyone's fugues from, say, the latter half of the 17th century.
Most modernists (not only in music) are out because I don't want to work too hard to determine what's happening with the tonal centers, which are traditionally a key element in fugues. Art should speak for itself, and everybody should be able to enjoy it, learned or not. If one needs to be "learned" to enjoy it, or if one needs an explanation, it is craft, not art. If it's not art, it can't be "good enough".
I agree that music should be open to all with the ears to hear it and an enquiring mind and an emotional palette capable of appreciating the material to which they listen, but an absence of academic "learning" does not of itself imply that the listener doesn't have to make an effort; you "don't want to work too hard" - well, that's a pity, because the composer has worked hard for your benefit, be He Bach or be he Shostakovich!
Best,
Alistair
Topic: Playing Bach on Piano