Peter Watchorn plays Bach’s WTC I
“It makes us feel spiritually spic and span.” These words kept coming to mind as I spent a musically intense afternoon listening to the entire first book of J. S. Bach’s Das Wohltemperierte Clavier [The Well-Tempered Keyboard] played on the pedal harpsichord by Peter Watchorn (Musica Omnia MO 0201). The quotation, from the American harpsichord duo Philip Manuel and Gavin Williamson, came in response to an interviewer’s question as to why they preferred 18th-century music. [For the complete text and citation, see Palmer: Harpsichord in America, page 74].
“Bach’s 48” contains an infinite blend of musical ideas and contrapuntal ingenuity. Part one, comprising 24 preludes and 24 fugues in each of the 24 available chromatic tonalities, is commonly regarded as one of the keyboard player’s loftiest summits. This first set, from the year 1722, is paralleled in the literature only by the same composer’s second book, containing a similar group of preludes and fugues assembled in 1744.
Complete traversals of either set are comparatively rare, and, excepting performances by truly remarkable players, are best avoided by listeners. Australian-born Massachusetts resident Peter Watchorn’s two-CD set (recorded in 2005) documents one such exceptional presentation, and makes a case, both compelling and satisfying, for hearing the entire two and one-half hour work in sequence. “In the final stages of preparing this recording,” he writes, “for over a month I played the ‘48’ from beginning to end every day, sometimes twice. Rarely in my experience has time passed so quickly.”
The instruments employed for this musical journey are from the American harpsichord shop of Hubbard & Broekman: a two-manual copy (1990) of the 1646 Andreas Ruckers instrument, expanded in two 18th-century rebuildings by Blanchet and Taskin; and a pedal instrument (also from 1990) based on tonal concepts of the Hamburg Hass family of instrument builders. Both harpsichords possess remarkable beauty of sound, as well as long-lasting sonorities. The discreet addition of pedal tones (including a 16-foot register) to some pieces is tastefully conceived: indeed for the Fugue in A minor, such a pedal clavier provides the only possible solution for all the widely spaced notes of the ending to be negotiated by one player.
For a cycle utilizing every tonality available to the keyboardist, the choice of temperament becomes a vital part of the musical equation. Bradley Lehman’s 2004 “well-tempered” tuning, deduced from calligraphy atop the WTC manuscript’s title page, does seem, in its gentle yet colorful chromatics, to give credence to J. N. Forkel’s comment in the first Bach biography (1802), “He knew not, or rather he disdained, those sudden sallies by which many composers attempt to surprise their hearers. Even in his chromatics the advances are so soft and tender that we scarcely perceive their distances, though these are often very great . . .” (More of Forkel’s comments are quoted in the booklet to the CD recording. See also Lehman’s articles in the journal Early Music [Oxford University Press], February and May 2005.)
In “Thirty-five Years with Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier,” personal and intimate notes to his recording, Watchorn acknowledges the guiding influence of our mutual teacher Isolde Ahlgrimm, another of the artists who created unforgettable musical drama in her frequent complete presentations of both “48” volumes, from memory, often on consecutive evenings. Following these recorded performances with my Henle WTC score, rich in copious annotations added during Ahlgrimm’s Dallas masterclasses from February 1972 and June 1974, I heard many of her suggestions used to masterful effect. However, these are not slavish imitations of a mentor’s style, but rather the independent interpretations of a thoughtful, musical player.
With a logic based on Bach’s own practice in the Goldberg Variations, the artist ends his traversal of tonalities by repeating the opening C Major movement as an “Aria” (or more exactly, a “Prelude”) da capo. Dr. Watchorn, noting that the recording was made in strict chronological order, gives even more heft to his visceral need for closure, for tonal destination, thus achieved by this salutary repetition of the WTC’s opening measures.
It occurred to me that there could be yet another reason for doing so: with this repetition of the C Major Prelude the formal design of the set achieves an implied Bach signature. There are only two five-voice contrapuntal compositions in the cycle, the first of which is the C-sharp Minor Fugue, eighth piece from the beginning. With the C Major Prelude as finale, the other five-voice movement, the B-flat Minor Fugue becomes the sixth piece from the end. Eight plus six gives us Bach’s signature number fourteen (B+A+C+H = 2+1+3+8 as letter positions in the alphabet). Since the WTC survives in manuscript copies rather than in printed form, who knows what the mathematically adept composer would have done had he prepared the work for publication?
Send news items or comments about Harpsichord News to Dr. Larry Palmer, Division of Music, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, TX 75275;
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