Blog #5 - Oct. 18, 2020

From Brahms to Bach

All of these readings as class assignments have hit me amidships - because for me it's all directly relevant. Once again - to the uninitiated - the readings are broadly speaking about a) the differences between Manuscripts, Autographs and Holographs, and b) the consequences that even a bit of scholarship can make toward deciphering the composer's true intentions, in light of the struggle between Urtext, Annotated Editions, Urschrift, Reinschrift, etc. Why is it relevant to me personally? Well, it's NOT about Brahms at all (referring to the reading), but about Bach.

You see, I have a vested interested in not only playing Bach, but also getting Bach "right" - I play marimba, an instrument for which Bach never composed. If I want the people - the specialists - with whom I rub shoulders here in Leipzig, Germany (Bach is buried here) to accept my Bach interpretations, I can't simply "Play Bach" - I need to show that I've sought - and found - methods by which to interpret and emit his musical intentions. But while flying blindly, since Bach's Urtexts still won't help me to assemble my transcriptions. Playing the notes isn't enough - it has to remain Bach.

So, when I was invited to enter the Bach Archive here - to meet personally with Dr. Wollny, the head of the Archive - I was invited to inspect an autograph (!) of Bach's Chromatic Fantasie. This is a piece that I had recorded years earlier. It was already recognized at the time of its composition as being in a category of its own. But almost everyone played the standard way - with the following Fugue. So, for literally centuries, the work was "Bach's Chromatic Fantasie AND FUGUE."

Yuck. I hated that. It wasn't only because of not liking the fugue, but also because it was (in relation to the Chromatic Fantasy) absolutely unplayable on my instrument - but also because the theme of the Fugue seemed to me personally to be way too Rococo - in other words, the Fugue didn't fit the Fantasy (a very wild and woolly affair for the ears - Bach had also apparently taken rubato time to sow his wild keys), and I rebelled internally. "No, don't make me play that fugue!" I said to myself. So I had the leeway from my producer ("The Art of Xylos", BMG, Munich 2002) to release a recording of the Chromatic Fantasy - sans Fugue. I thought that the whole pianistic world was cursing me for my incompetence (He lef out tha bloody FUGUE! - I could hear it in my sleep).

And yet, here was the score in front of my eyes. Wollny well understood what looking at the manuscript was worth to me personally. He let me open it - but interrupted me first, in High German. "We haven't been able to find the original autograph in Bach's hand," he told me. "Can you guess whose hand it is?" he continued. I was terrified. Here I was, about to play the Bach Chromatic Fantasy in Leipzig as a part of the Bachfest (the world's largest and most important Bach festival by far), and I thought he was making me run the gauntlet suddenly. I knew the manuscript of this most unique work was worth literally millions.

I took another long look at the manuscript of the masterpiece. I turned my head to Prof. Dr. Wollny.

"Krebs?" I said.

He was visibly impressed. "Very close!" he said. Of course, I didn't actually recognize Kreb's manuscript style. But I knew that Krebs (one of Bach's most trusted students) had been copyist for Bach in precisely the time that Bach wrote the CF - 1730.

No, it was another of Bach's students. And while Wollny was busy poring over each and every jot and tittle of the manuscript, I was absolutely elated to discover - on the frontispiece - that the title of the work was Chromatische Phantasie. No fugue. Nor anything that could remotely be confuged.

I walked away from the Bach archive that afternoon with a most refreshing Allegro Arroganto.