Performing Bach's Orgelbüchlein: Da Jesus an dem Kreuze stund, BWV 621
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 9 ก.พ. 2025
- Learning to play Bach on the organ, using the "Little Organ Book" or Orgelbüchlein. Music performance starts here: • Performing Bach's Orge...
For all the Orgelbüchlein episodes in order, see
• Bach's Orgelbüchlein (... .
For some background information, see the
introductory film on • Bach's Orgelbüchlein: ... .
This episode was recorded in Sola Chapel (formerly Sola Church) in Norway. Details of the organ can be found on ryde-berg.no/o... .
The series is presented by Dr Tim Rishton www.rishton.eu
For all the Orgelbüchlein episodes in order, see th-cam.com/play/PLABcWksVExXsIRFhMOewhg1hNzPDUxAsR.html
I took the symbolism of suspensions to be something like the heaving of breath, though the music is beautiful in a way that captures both the tension of pain and passion. Speaking of suspensions, I love your commentary on the articulation because I had been contemplating this exact same problem. It makes me feel like we are all on this same journey together.
I'm delighted that you'd been thinking along the same lines about the articulation: a privilege to share the same journey with you! Tim
Beautiful performance, IMO. I love the sound; soft and gentle yet also so clear. That sort of sound attracted me to the pipe organ early on, yet in decades I've rarely had a chance to play pipe organs that have it: most have the 8' dulled to the extent that complex registrations are required for clarity.
I notice you using (5-4 and 4-5) finger substitutions for the melody e.g. near the end. When I started I was told that finger substitution wasn't possible in Bach's time, so for decades I didn't use it. In the end I found that this rule created more problems that it solved (and in any case I think it can't possibly be true - even if it was a rule then, I think it's quite possible that Bach didn't follow it).
For me now, the music comes first and exists inside of me, and my fingers must find a way to deliver that music.
Thank you. Yes, I'm sure you're right about finger substitutions. Bach's fingers were the same as ours. So far as the keyboards were concerned, I've spent years playing 18th-century organs in Thüringen, often with original keyboards that Bach might have played on, and can tell you that there is no hindrance whatever for this kind of finger substitution. Bach, of course, was a really great organist and was apparently not averse to breaking "rules", so there is no reason to suppose that he would not have used finger substitution, even if there were a "rule" against it (which is questionable). But I would only do this in the chorale melody (and then probably exceptionally) rather than in the figuration, because the figuration is generally shaped to fit the hands, which means that what falls readily under the fingers gives us some insights into the kind of articulation that the composer intended. But "music first" is a great philosophy.
02:12 [Numerical?] Symbolism "a complete waste of time". That cheers me up a lot 🙂. I've loved Bach's music for over forty years, and I play a lot of it, yet I have an innate aversion to symbolism that involves numbers and seeing patterns in numbers - it quite literally turns my stomach - and I feared that I was missing out on something important yet inaccessible to me.
I suppose a core aspect of me is that I love intended meaning but not invented meaning!
If I'd planned my comments in advance I would probably have been more circumspect, but your conclusion "I love intended meaning but not invented meaning" is spot on - I wish I'd said it. Symbolism does exist here and there, but hunting for it is what feels like a waste of time, at least for a performer. It's like going for a lovely forest walk and focussing on distribution patterns of pine cones. There may be some pattern, but it doesn't necessarily mean anything and there are surely better ways of enjoying the walk. Back in the 1980s I knew David Humphreys when he was working on numerical symbolism in Bach, and I have every respect for his findings, but going looking for symbolism feels like falling down Alice's rabbit hole and arriving in a land where anything might make sense, but nothing quite does.
@@timrishton5871 Understood. However, in my view you conveyed well how much you were troubled by the whole thing. Humans do have a tendency to see what they want to see - that's undoubtedly a very real problem - and seeing someone have a visceral reaction against seeing what one wants to see can give them effective protection against it - more effective than reasons and explanations.