is it wrong to play bach in a non legato fashion?

Question

While listening to some pianists who were never influenced by gould's semi staccato such as charles rosen vs gould and others I have noticed that there is a very striking difference in "touch" (if that is the right word for it), and I have read in various places that Bach asserted that legato playing was correct and that you should hold notes for their full values.

I suppose Gould had a tendency towards eccentricities though, I notice his playing of the WTC 2 comes in at 104 minutes and the WTC 1 comes in at 107 minutes despite the fact that WTC 2 has almost 1.5 times the amount of pages/music in my edition of them at least. Anyway, my first Bach recordings were Gould's WTC 1 and 2, and I've listened and loved those recordings more times than I can count, but I am beginning to suspect that I should view these recordings more as guilty pleasures rather than anything close to Bach's intentions, and I was hoping for more learned opinions on the matter.

Answer 1

The articulation to play for Bach is much debated. Bradley Lehman notes that:

"For good musicians, Bach did not pedantically mark everything that is (or should be) already obvious, or easy enough to figure out with musicianship and training. [And remember, he was right there in most cases to provide that training directly.] The notation doesn't tell us everything we need to know to do our jobs well."



However that leads us to trouble today: because Bach did not notate every articulation for every note we are left to try and figure out what he meant based on the available information. That information consists of Bach's scores, contemporary accounts of other musicians and music critics, and various treatises on performance, theory and aesthetics.



There are also other considerations because the instrument we play on today is very different that the instrument Bach used. part of playing Bach on piano is navigating the differences between our modern piano and all it's capabilities and sustain etc, that were not available to Bach. Some of those sonorities are appropriate for Bach and others are not. When you think Of Glen Gould's staccato he's trying to imitate the articulation of a harpsichord while playing the piano.



We can break up the question of is it wrong into two components: 1) would Bach have played it that way if he were performing the piece in the 18th century? 2) Is it appropriate for us to play it a certain way today? To phrase another way: to what extent are we bound by the 200 year old conventions?

The first question is answered by extensive study of contemporary documents, the second is more of a aesthetic question for which you have to ask yourself if you think a score is a fixed and unchanging document.



For a complete explanation and further reading I suggest:

Bach Interpretation: Articulation Marks in the Primary Sources of J. S. Bach by John Butt

Answer 2

If Gould's playing them with a semi staccato style I'd consider them a little bit of a guilty pleasure. Bach would surely throw a fit, but then again he was known to be kind of hot-headed.



What Bach meant was that he believed everything should be played smooth, connected, and not have the notes chopped off. Staccato, however, is when the notes are choppy and (as my old band director used to say) you can see daylight between them. Legato is kind of like a glorified mud puddle: you can "see" through it enough to define the shape but it's blurry enough you can't make out the particulars.



It's up to you to decide how much of a guilty pleasure they are but keep in mind that unless the composer is directing/preforming the piece it's not going to be exactly how they intended. That's the beauty of an artistic license.

Answer 3

If a piano had been available to Bach, would that have changed what he wrote. The fact of the matter is that there were, admittedly primitive pianos around in the latter part of Bach's life, but they were not sufficiently developed until the father of piano music, Emmanuel Bach (his son) championed them. Long and the short of it is that the clavichord, the harpsichord and the other variations in keyboard or clavier design have simply been replaced by a superior instrument. In the same way the Model T Ford was replaced. Their dominance was short lived in the clavier world because of their limitations. To say that Bach's music played on the piano is horrible is simply a ludicrous statement. It is demeaning to the instrument, the music and it's composer. Nobody makes these kind of statements about Bach's lute suites which are now played almost exclusively on the guitar. The older clavier designs are hard to come by these days. It is rare to see one outside of concert hall. They are now only used by the historically accurate crowd and as such have their place. I don't know whether it was your intention to be inflammatory, but in any case I would be more circumspect when your facts are dubious. Bach actually tried a couple of early piano designs, but found fault with them and communicated this to their makers. As such he made a contribution to the development of the clavier. The theme to the Goldberg Variations is a great example of a beautiful melody that is perfect on the piano. The ability to change the dynamics enhances the piece rather than detracts from it. Nobody is forcing you to listen to Baroque music on the piano. Pianists are not going to let all that great music go unheard.

Answer 4

It really depends on what pieces you're playing. Most pieces by bach are meant to play with legato, and not staccato, so I can see why many people who play bach that play in a staccato style would be guilty, especially because Bach was one of the best pianist composers of any time (including pipe organ composer).



Although he said legato playing was correct and you should keep notes connected in an orderly fashion, this really applies mostly to his pieces. There are a variety of Chopin pieces for the piano, for example, that involve Staccato like the jumping key etude. So it really depends on the piece for which style you should play.



Legato is when the notes are held down a tad bit harder and longer and are smoothly connected and not disconnected. Staccato is when the notes just jump up and down with your fingers and are disconnected.



This is the main reason why a lot of Bach's pieces are played legato style, simply because he plays fast pieces with many tricky note combinations that would sound jumbled and messed up with staccato. A lot of notes would be drowned out as well.



Staccato is more for really exciting pieces where moving your fingers up and down is required, and although sometimes they involve tricky note combinations, the tricky notes of Bach and how each note sounds makes the tricky fingers of smoothly connecting each note in legato style for John Sebastian Bach truly an amazing thing to watch.



There is something wrong if you play a Bach piece in staccato style if it says to do it in legato style, but if it sounds nice and beautiful music is produced, you shouldn't really feel guilty in how worse your playing sounds, really only of how bad the composer would feel if they were alive knowing you would play it that way.



Although in certain pieces it is pleasurable to play Staccato, you shouldn't do it if it doesn't say to. However, if you only listen to a recording like this, there's no need to be guilty. Music can be appreciated (even if it's not the most amount possible) even if not played entirely correctly.



I wouldn't call it a guilty pleasure if someone else was playing it, but that's just me. Imagine how much worse the person feels (including embarrassed) to have made recordings that don't even resemble how the composer wanted the music to be played. He or she must have felt really bad.



Moral of the story- you can play staccato if you feel like it, but it won't sound as good as it is supposed to be played if it was written as legato.



P.S.- Staccato is actually good practice in order to make your fingers nimble and fast and easy to move around the keyboard. Staccato makes your fingers more able to move freely across the keyboard and play fast. With legato, your fingers are next to each other and already there. With staccato, it's a good workout with all the jumping.



So enjoy playing staccato at first if it helps you practice, and definitely don't be guilty about anything.



Best regards.

Answer 5

Bach did indicate staccato in his manuscripts but very rarely. Most of his pieces works fine just playing them legato.