Performing Bach

I attended an all-Bach performance yesterday and I am left with a host of nagging questions. On the one hand, I think that kindness is a virtue and criticism can often be mean-spirited. On the other hand, honesty is also a virtue. So, yes, there were issues with the quality of the performance, But there were political and cultural issues as well. Let me set the scene.

A classical guitarist with whom I was previously unacquainted is doing a series of concerts in which he presents all the music that we can legitimately (more or less) perform on guitar. This includes all the so-called lute suites as well as the solo suites and sonatas for solo violin and the six suites for solo cello. The performance was on eight-string guitar. Those two things in themselves were a powerful motivation for me to attend the concerts. There will be six concerts, but I only became aware of the series after the first two had already taken place. So yesterday was the third concert, held in the central patio of the local library. These concerts are all to benefit scholarship programs of the library. The series as a whole is titled "A Peace Musical Offering" as it is dedicated generally to "peace" and references Bach's A Musical Offering.

In the introductory remarks there was no mention of peace between which parties, nor which party might be favored so it was just nebulous virtue-signaling. But that nebulosity also extended to the performance itself. As a long-retired guitar instructor I was troubled by the casual sitting position with the guitar resting simply on crossed legs. Mind you, Thomas Dunford, an extraordinary lutenist, uses the same position. But no professional classical guitarist does, choosing either a footrest or a guitar rest. The guitar itself was quite reasonable with a good resonant sound. The problems started with the first note. I think I can describe the effect as being very like an intermediate guitar student trying to sightread Bach and only partially succeeding. The analogue in prose might be like this:

ok,   here we go ... with the ... first phrase of.... the pre. lude to thethirdcello  suite uh the third ... cel. lo. suite...

I have taught at two universities, two conservatories and a two-year college and this kind of performance would have failed the audition for acceptance to the program at all of them. I'm not sure what to call the basic failing: complete lack of discipline? If you sit down to learn a piece by Bach, you have to take it in small sections and work on each section at a very slow tempo until all of it is in your fingers. It was as if he had never encountered this idea. He didn't lack technical skills because there were passages that came off relatively complete. But then the next phrase would be interrupted by a forest of missed notes, incorrect bass notes and frequent hesitations.

One of the best master classes in Bach on guitar I attended was that of Oscar Ghiglia at The Banff Centre. I'm pretty sure that if this kind of playing had been offered there, Oscar would have stopped him after the first couple of phrases and made him repeat them over and over and over again until they were smooth and consistent. This performance was like listening to someone with a hopeless stutter try and recite Shakespeare.

What was puzzling was that the performance was not unmusical as such. Nor did he play Bach as if he hated it like some otherwise professional guitarists do. No, the timbre was nice and there were even some phrases that were well-delivered. But the whole was hopelessly sloppy, as if the concept of a minimal professional standard of accuracy just didn't exist. Perhaps what was needed was a little less peace and little more anxiety about simply playing the right notes.

I am reminded of attending a recital of an up-and-coming young Canadian cellist years ago. My flautist friend and I were just leaving at the end when we ran into Paul Kling, a truly great violinist. We sort of shrugged as the concert had been rather frothy with a lot of throwing about of the hair. Paul, in his delightful Czech accent simply said: "you were expecting Rostropovich, maybe?"