Bach Flute Sonatas

I'm playing Bach Sonata for Flute in B Minor [BWV 1030] with Philip Braithwaite in a lunchtime concert at All Saints Cathedral, Bathurst on Wednesday, 1st July, at 12.30 PM. This and the B Minor Orchestral Suite are said to be Bach's most substantial works for the flute.

But I can't find a recording of the work which features piano accompaniment. I already own the Teldec Bach 2000 set, which features Franz Bruggen playing the flute, accompanied by Herbert Tachezi on harpsichord. But every recording I can locate also features harpsichord. This may be the correct instrument to use, but give us pianists a break, please!

Is this a project for Angela Hewitt?

Bruggen and Tachezi play the first movement in a bit over 7 minutes. So far it takes me almost 9. I wonder how fast Phil wants to play it? Should I tell him he's dreamin'?

Bach Pilgrimage

This afternoon I downloaded from the International Music Score Library Project the scores for the three cantatas in the concert on the wonderful Bach Pilgrimage DVD and have just listened to the first two cantatas. The first one on the dvd is

BWV 179 Siehu zu, daß deine Gottesfurcht nicht Heuchelei sei
See to it that thy fear of God be not hypocrisy

which is based on the story of the Pharisee and the tax collector in Luke chapter 18. When the self-righteous Pharisee prays he brags about what a great person he is and is really praying to himself. But the tax collector humbly asks God to be merciful to him, because he knows he is a sinner.
The anonymous librettist created a wonderful interpretation of Jesus' parable, aiming to remind us, in the words of Ecclesiasticus 1:28

Do not serve God with a double heart

which is the basis of the sensational opening fugue.

The tenor then sings a recitative and aria which tells us that

Today's Christianity is, alas, in a sorry state. Most Christians are puffed up Pharisees.

The following bass recitative tells us that a true Christian is someone who

is inwardly and outwardly the same.

Magdalena Kozena sings the next aria

BWV 199 Mein Herze schwimmt im Blut
My heart is bathed in blood.

She is a superb dramatic performer and conveys the varied emotions of the text marvellously, from the deeply sorrowful opening recitative and aria to the joyful concluding recitative and aria

How joyful is my heart for God is reconciled with me

I'm looking forward to listening to the last cantata, after this short blogging break. Bach's music depicts the sense of the text superbly. I highly recommend this dvd, even if you do not yet know much about Bach. The rest of the recording tells the story of this pilgrimage around Germany, other parts of Europe and Britain, and finishing in New York. John Eliot Gardiner and his orchestra, chorus and guest soloists spent 2000 visiting places where Bach had first performed his music [which is only Germany], but also performing the cantatas on the day of the church calendar on which they were originally heard. [Occasionally this wasn't possible, due to the movable nature of the church calendar, which you will notice with the variety of tiems when Easter is celebrated, for example.]

Different Voices

Have you come across Debbie Wiseman's Different Voices? Promoted as a new Young Person's Guide to the Orchestra, it has much more in common with Peter and the Wolf. It is performed by The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by the composer and narrated by Stephen Fry and features Hayley Westenra singing the theme song throughout the work. I haven't tried it out on any children yet, but we adults like it. It is about 50 minutes long, so it is quite a bit longer than Peter and the Wolf.

It is a worthy member of the Music Introducing Children to Classical Music Club. The CD number is NAXOS 8.572022

Bach lives

Today is the 324th anniversary of the birth of Johann Sebastian Bach, surely the most remarkable musician the world has known. Two years ago today I won an episode of The Einstein Factor, with this great man as my special subject.

This morning I listened to part of one of his many church cantatas, Cantata BWV 181 Leichtgesinnte Flattergeister, whose opening words in English have been translated as

Frivolous flibbertigibbets
deprive themselves of the Word's strength.
Belial with his brood
also seeks to prevent it
from being of service.

I was interested to read some comments by Andras Schiff in The World of Pianos: fascination with an instrument, published by Bechstein.

I cannot love Wagner, because he disgusts me. He was certainly a great composer, but I hear his human character and his egotism in each measure of his music. Self-centredness in art disturbs me a great deal ...

For me Bach is the greatest composer because he was so unconcerned with himself and deeply religious. It is like the men who built the great cathedrals during the Renaissance. Today we do not know who these people were. They worked to achieve a higher goal and not to immortalise themselves. That conforms to my ideal of art.

Fading away

About eight years ago, I participated in a research project investigating people with perfect pitch. [This is the ability to hear a sound and to know the pitch of it.]

I was told that Australian research suggests that babies are born with this facility, and recognise their mother's voice not just by timbre, but pitch as well. In time, this fades as this method of recognition is no longer necessary.

However some people who begin music lessons at an early age retain the ability to hear a sound and to know its pitch.

But I was also told that as people get older, this ability is not as acute. I have noticed this to be true and have sometimes heard a recording and been thinking in, say A flat major, when the piece of music is being transmitted in A major.

When I was younger this didn't happen and when I was played a gramophone recording for an aural test, if the record was playing too fast, and I was told to write my answer in E major, but it came across as F major, I would find this disturbing and would have to write it out in F and then transpose.

I was playing in India in 1973 on a piano that had been tuned a semitone sharp and I found this most distressing and had a hard time keeping on keeping on [as my father used to say, quoting the Berger Paint advertisement].

But yesterday at James and Therese's wedding, the string players and trumpeter all noticed that the pipe organ I was playing was very sharp when they tuned their instruments. I was blissfully unaware of this until it was obvious by listening to the violinist tuning.

But it has advantages, because I can now play a flat or sharp instrument without having to do mental gymnastics to match what I hear with what I play.

All you need is ears

... and a friendly bank manager, or maybe a very rich uncle.

On the back page of last week's Sydney Morning Herald TV guide there is a Len Wallis Audio advertisement. I've been reading these ads for years. The shop sells high-end audio and I always wonder how many units they sell, as the stuff sounds like it should be terrific, but pricey.

But last week's ad takes the cake. It is promoting Grande Utopia III speakers. They are so good, the ad says, that everything else you've heard so far is a murmur. The speakers are 2 metres tall and weigh 260 kg each. They cost $269,000 a pair and are worth every cent!

I'm wondering what your total outlay for your hifi system would be, if the speakers alone cost more than any house I've ever bought!

I'm guessing they sound pretty amazing, but I'm wondering if I could tell the difference from say a $4,000 pair.

Mozart? Schmozart!

People rabbit on about Mozart as a child prodigy, and it's true. He was. But check out the earliest compositions of Chopin, born on St David's Day, 1st March, 1810. He wrote amazingly technical piano works [which was all he did write] at the age of 7. Much more demanding than Wolfie's first efforts.