WTC 2 via sampled piano and midi manipulation

[johnlewisgrant]

I've had this material up a Youtube for years.  No money and no ads, of course.   Not interested in those horrible ads or the money they supposedly generate.

All 24 of the less well-known preludes and fugues from Bk 2 of the Well-tempered are there.  I constantly amend them, so interpretations may change from day to day.

The "instrument" (it IS a real Hamburg Steinway, but one that has been "sampled") I'll not mention, because I don't want to be thought to be advertising it.

The "advantage" of "MIDI" in this instance is the obvious fact that it allows each voice (either in a prelude or a fugue) to be treated independently.  The pianist (which I am or try to be), can envisage beforehand what his or her "ideal" interpretation of a prelude or fugue might be.  We aim at that ideal at the piano, but we may have a lot of trouble realizing it.  That makes the effort quite relevant and helpful to me as a pianist.

A purely technical advantage is that it is very, very difficult to record the piano "beautifully," for want of a better term.  The technology I use at least allows me to, within limits, experiment with alternative microphones and physical spaces, which sometimes makes a significant difference to the sonic outcome as one moves from one key to the next.  I find the result pleasing enough, and interpretatively useful enough, that I am able to listen to what I've done and see the individual preludes and fugues from Book 2 from a different point of view.   I'm fortunate to have a Hailun 218 at home (the best of the Chinese-made pianos in my view), and I have benefitted from this theoretical exploration (although I don't play a lot of Bach).

There are disadvantages, as well.  The spontaneity of live performance is (arguably) absent, although this is also at least partly true of most modern studio recordings.   All piano music, even the most abstract, "mental only" compositions, are made and therefore conceived at a basic level with two hands and ten fingers at the keyboard.   Once one begins producing and interpretation that is away from the keyboard, one risks losing the "keyboard feel"--the touch, articulation, and dynamic shading--that is essential to the music.


Here is the link:

Note: Youtube is in 128kps, so the audio is not high end.   Also, Youtube has deemed my interpretation of prelude 17 in A Flat Major (BWV 886) as a "copyright infringement" of something by Keith Jarrett, I assume the same piece recorded by him.   It is not, obviously, but until this is sorted out, that prelude may not be uploadable.

[georgey]

Here are my quick initial thoughts, questions and opinions.

What if a person through 100% electronic means can create a version of a composer’s work that is perhaps true to the composer’s intentions but is lifted to a new, higher dimension than the composer could have ever imagined?  Is this a bad or a good thing?

An example for me is Tomita’s synthesizer rendition of Prokofiev symphony #5.  I experience a higher level of emotion in Tomita’s work of this compared to the original score.  Does it matter what the composer would think about this if I am getting more enjoyment from the music?  I would be interested in Prokofiev’s opinion but his opinion would not affect my opinion.  

Another example:  I am currently listening to Schoenberg’s orchestration of Brahms op. 25 Piano quartet and Bach’s Saint Anne prelude and fugue originally written for organ.  I experience a higher level of emotion in some/much this orchestration compared to the original score (especially the Brahms).  I imagine that Brahms might dislike this version if he heard it.  The orchestration is similar to that used by Mahler and Strauss and some of Liszt.  Would Brahms opinion affect my enjoyment of this?  No.  Not any more than Brahms opinion that the Liszt piano sonata is bad affects my enjoyment of the Liszt sonata.

Does an idealized version of the Bach WTC put musicians out of business?  I’m thinking absolutely NO.  Not any more than Tomita’s work does.

I listened to excerpts of the idealized piano WTC II.  For the most part, the performances are tasteful and sound great.  Here is the potential for the ideal piano sound in an ideal acoustic environment with a piano that is perfectly in tune with perfect balance and independence of voices, unlimited dynamics, etc.  In some/many regards, I find these performances to be a step up from what a solo performer could do at the piano. It is important that you keep things tasteful as you appear to have done for the most part.


Question: can you describe how you made these?  I'm going to reread your original post for clues.

[perfect_pitch]

In some/many regards, I find these performances to be a step up from what a solo performer could do at the piano.

That seems a little insulting...   

[johnlewisgrant]

Here are my quick initial thoughts, questions and opinions.

What if a person through 100% electronic means can create a version of a composer’s work that is perhaps true to the composer’s intentions but is lifted to a new, higher dimension than the composer could have ever imagined?  Is this a bad or a good thing?

An example for me is Tomita’s synthesizer rendition of Prokofiev symphony #5.  I experience a higher level of emotion in Tomita’s work of this compared to the original score.  Does it matter what the composer would think about this if I am getting more enjoyment from the music?  I would be interested in Prokofiev’s opinion but his opinion would not affect my opinion.  

Another example:  I am currently listening to Schoenberg’s orchestration of Brahms op. 25 Piano quartet and Bach’s Saint Anne prelude and fugue originally written for organ.  I experience a higher level of emotion in some/much this orchestration compared to the original score (especially the Brahms).  I imagine that Brahms might dislike this version if he heard it.  The orchestration is similar to that used by Mahler and Strauss and some of Liszt.  Would Brahms opinion affect my enjoyment of this?  No.  Not any more than Brahms opinion that the Liszt piano sonata is bad affects my enjoyment of the Liszt sonata.

Does an idealized version of the Bach WTC put musicians out of business?  I’m thinking absolutely NO.  Not any more than Tomita’s work does.

I listened to excerpts of the idealized piano WTC II.  For the most part, the performances are tasteful and sound great.  Here is the potential for the ideal piano sound in an ideal acoustic environment with a piano that is perfectly in tune with perfect balance and independence of voices, unlimited dynamics, etc.  In some/many regards, I find these performances to be a step up from what a solo performer could do at the piano. It is important that you keep things tasteful as you appear to have done for the most part.


Question: can you describe how you made these?  I'm going to reread your original post for clues.

You raise several issues, all very pertinent.  Not sure I can address all of them.  But, very briefly,
here goes:

The issue of musical taste and judgment: I like Monroe Beardsley (American philosopher) on this subject:  There are standards of taste and of judgment in musical interpretation, for example, that ornamentation in Bach should accord with Baroque practice.  Another example (these are not Beardsley's): Baroque music is best played on original instruments. 

These judgments can be disputed, and often are, by musicians who adhere to different musical tastes, standards, and schools of interpretation.  There are, consequently, alternative approaches to interpretation, each with its own set of well-honed justifications and reasons.  The key point in all this is the question of the "objectivity" of aesthetic (and in this particular case, musical) judgments.  That's because, in addition to practising and performing music whilst adhering to a school of thought about interpretation and so on, many musicians make the additional claim that THEIR approach to interpretation is the RIGHT one and that other interpretations, or schools of interpretation are therefore, in some sense or senses, in error.  This is (or was) the sort of position that some (not all) original instrument fans used to make: "Baroque music performed on non-Baroque (ie "modern" instruments) is, in fact, just not as expressive, as authentic, as accurate, as pleasing, as meaningful, (etc., etc.,) as Baroque music performed on original instruments."     

If you think about it, these sorts of claims imply quite strongly that musical judgments are like other judgments of fact, like the sorts of judgements scientists make, for example.  Consequently, where there are two incompatible musical approaches to a piece, both cannot be "true," so to speak; only one can be true, or alternatively both may be false.  But both interpretative approaches cannot be true at the same time. 

(Personally) I can't accept this point of view.  So right off the bat, that makes me a relativist where interpretive approaches to the WTK are concerned.   I still like to look at different editions, for obvious reasons, the most important of which is that you are exposed to alternative approaches to bringing out polyphonic structure. 

I guess that puts me in the "anything goes" category, where interpretation and "likes" and "dislikes" are concerned.  I would have no logical or rational objection to Wendy Carlos, or to computerized Prokofiev.


Having said that, I don't personally "like" a lot of computerized music, just as I don't like Charles Rosen's rendition of the Goldberg Variations, where he goes up an octave on some of the Variations.  On the other hand, Pletnev's Scarlatti is fantastic, in my books, even though he consciously and deliberately violates canonical norms of interpretation.  Not Scarlatti for the faint of heart.  I like Schepkin's quite original ornamentation in his WTK, while others find it somewhat over-the-top.


On the issue of method: Like many pianists here at PianoStreet, I've plowed through ALL of Bk 1 and Bk 2 at various times in my life.  I HAD memorized quite a few from both books, as well; but that was finger memory, and has not stood the test of time very well. 

In assembling the WTK for my Youtube material, typically I would play through a prelude or fugue, on a very poor keyboard (in this case, a Kawai ES100), which playing is of course recorded simultaneously in MIDI.   I then examine or "analyze," I guess you could say, the results.  I separate out the voices.   I manipulate the velocity, length, and position of notes.  etc etc.   

I often lose my work, as it happens, when crashes occur, which they do.  (I'm lazy about backing up.)  But ideally, I aim to have a computerized (MIDI) record of all my interpretations as they evolve.  Thus, where something that bothers me about an interpretation that might be several years old, I can make tiny changes to just one aspect, while keeping everything else that I like exactly the same.  The interpretations therefore tend to evolve incrementally over time.

[lostinidlewonder]

Let me paraphrase 48 Prelude and Fugues (Tovey and Sameul)
"..One thing is certain, before anything "pianistic" is attempted the student should have thoroughly mastered Bach's exact part-writing as written, should be able to express its climaxes distinctly without adding or altering a note.

... our appreciation of Bach loses more than it gains from the occasional bursts of pianistic effectiveness accidentally possible in passages which may not be climaxes at all.

JS Bach is fond crowding all the harmony he could into both hands; not until we have learnt to achieve Bach's part-writing with our fingers can we venture to translate him into any pianoforte style which produces volume at the expense of part-writing.

... it may be taken as an axiom that when a phrasing or touch represents a "pianistic" mannerism that would sound ugly on the harpsichord, that phrasing will misconstrue Bach's language and tell us nothing interesting about the pianoforte. If players think it "natural" they are mistaken, however habitually they may do it. They are merely applying a small part of the pianoforte technique of 1806 to the clavichord and harpsichord music of 1730.

There are very simple ways of detecting what is unnatural in the interpretation of most of Bach's themes; and, if the test sometimes fails to answer directly, it certainly never misleads. It is summed up in two words, Sing it.

If the phrase proves singable at all, the attempt to sing it will almost certainly reveal natural types of expression easily perfectible on the pianoforte and incomparably better than any result of the natural behavior of the pianists hands. Even in matters that at first seem to be merely instrumental, the vocal test reveals much.

Organists who play fugues more often than most people, do not find it necessary, when the subject enters in the inner parts, to pick it out with the thumb or another manual. They and their listeners enjoy the polyphony because the inner parts can neither stick out nor fail to balance within the harmony, so long as the notes are played at all. On the pianoforte however constant care is needed to prevent failure of tone, and certainly the subject of a fugue should not be liable to such failure. But never should the counterpoints, indeed the less heard clearly (e.g: the clinching third countersubject of the F minor Fugues in Bk1) Most of Bach's counterpoint actually sounds best when the parts are evenly balanced. It is never a mere combinations of melodies, but always a mass of harmony stated in terms of a combination of melodies.

When Bach combines melodies, the combination forms full harmony as soon as two parts are present. (Even a solitary part will be a melody which is its own bass.) Each additional part adds new harmonic meaning, as well as its own melody and rhythm, and all are in transparent contrast with each other at every point. No part needs bringing out at the expense of others, but on the pianoforte care is most needed for that part which is most in danger of failure of tone.

[johnlewisgrant]

I have Tovey's bk 1 and 2.  His prose is beautiful, and whether you agree with him or not, he provides incredibly interesting, insightful, and often useful comments on each p & f!

Having said that, my piano teacher used to discourage both listening to recordings and reading lengthy analyses until you had mastered the piece on your own.  THEN, apparently, it was perfectly OK. 

I was never able to obey.

[lostinidlewonder]

Personally I like to hear the voices played more equally which adds more dimension to Bach's music as you can pick and choose what to listen to or listen to it equally as a whole. When one starts exaggerating pianistic effects on lines it really distrubs this for me. Small touches are fine but when you over do them, although they can seem like an improvement, we really have to consider what Samuel and Tovey warned about:

"... not until we have learnt to achieve Bach's part-writing with our fingers can we venture to translate him into any pianoforte style which produces volume at the expense of part-writing."

and

" it may be taken as an axiom that when a phrasing or touch represents a "pianistic" mannerism that would sound ugly on the harpsichord, that phrasing will misconstrue Bach's language and tell us nothing interesting about the pianoforte. If players think it "natural" they are mistaken, however habitually they may do it. They are merely applying a small part of the pianoforte technique of 1806 to the clavichord and harpsichord music of 1730."