CARNEGIE HALL PRESENTS
Angela Hewitt

Zankel Hall
Friday, October 26th, 2007 at 7:30 PM

Angela Hewitt, Piano

BACH The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I

Program Notes:

JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I
Born March 21, 1685, in Eisenach; died July 28, 1750, in Leipzig.

Bach composed Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier probably between the years 1710 and 1722. The first complete Carnegie Hall performance of Book I took place in Carnegie Recital Hall (now Weill Recital Hall) on February 1, 1959, with 16-year-old pianist Sheila Minzer. The first performance at Carnegie Hall of any prelude and/or fugue from Book I took place in the Carnegie Lyceum (now Zankel Hall) on March 9, 1899, with 8-year-old pianist Vladimir Shaievitch, who played the Prelude in D Minor, BWV 851.
The six years that Johann Sebastian Bach spent as Kapellmeister to Prince Leopold of Anhalt-Cöthen (1717–23) were some of the happiest of his life. The young prince (only 23 years old in 1717) was a viola da gamba player of great skill and had an 18-piece orchestra of excellent caliber. Bach was delighted to work for someone who both “loved and understood music.” On taking up his new duties, Bach relinquished the composition of organ and choral music that had occupied him previously in Weimar. Only a few cantatas were composed to celebrate royal birthdays and special occasions. Cöthen was in Saxony, where Calvinism predominated at the time, and there was little music in the local churches (with the exception of the Lutheran Agnuskirche where Bach worshipped and went to practice the organ). He was now expected to produce secular instrumental music, and he did so, as was his custom, with great energy and all his heart and soul. From the Cöthen period date the “Brandenburg” Concertos, the four orchestral Suites, the Partitas, Suites, and Sonatas for solo and accompanied violin and cello, and the French Suites for keyboard. Bach and the prince became close friends, and he often accompanied the latter on his journeys. Upon returning from a trip to Karlsbad in 1720, Bach was confounded by the news that his wife, Maria Barbara, had died and was already buried. With four children ranging from the age of 5 to 12 to bring up, he could not remain a widower for long, and within a year had married Anna Magdalena Wilcke (other spellings of her name being Wilcken, Wölcken, Wülcke, or Wülcken), 16 years his junior and a fine soprano. Their marriage was celebrated on December 3, 1721, with four barrels and 32 carafes of wine—almost 100 liters!

As his duties at court were not totally time-consuming, Bach was able to devote himself to the musical education of his family. In 1720, when his eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann was nine years old, he presented him with a notebook in which they began to compile pieces that contain, among other things, first drafts of what we know today as the Little Preludes, the Two- and Three-Part Inventions, and eleven of the first 12 Preludes from The Well-Tempered Clavier. It was always Bach’s aim to develop musical intelligence from the very beginning along with technique—something which is often overlooked today. Many of the pieces in the Clavierbüchlein are in Wilhelm Friedemann’s own hand, as he was undoubtedly learning how to compose.

It is impossible to give exact dates of composition of many of Bach’s works, as they were often compiled from already-existing material. In the case of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, Bach wrote the date 1722 on the title page of the fair copy:

The Well-Tempered Clavier or Preludes and Fugues through all the tones and semitones including those with a major third or Ut Re Mi as well as those with a minor third or Re Mi Fa.

For the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this study composed and prepared by Johann Sebastian Bach at present Capellmeister to His Serene Highness the Prince of Anhalt-Cöthen, and director of His Chamber Music. Anno 1722”

To satisfactorily explain the adjective “well-tempered” is to tread on dangerous ground. Treatises have been written on the subject, and even today the debate continues. Tuning a keyboard instrument always has to be a compromise, because the intervals of a perfect fifth and a perfect third are incompatible with each other and with a pure octave. In Bach’s day, the common practice was to use the mean-tone system, which retained the purity and sweetness of the major third. This meant, however, that it was impossible to play in all 24 keys because of “errors” that would occur in the more remote ones. As musicians became more and more dissatisfied with these restrictions, they turned to equal temperament which favors the interval of a perfect fifth, and which makes each key tolerable (although inevitably one can argue that much is lost by making everything uniform, especially as regards the character of each key). In between these two systems there can be many modifications, and it is thought that Bach must have used his own method of tuning. The only, rather vague, testimony we have on the subject comes from his obituary, written by his son C. P. E. Bach and his pupil J. F. Agricola, where it states: “In the tuning of harpsichords he achieved so correct and pure a temperament that all the keys sounded pure and agreeable. He knew no keys which, because of impure intonation, one must avoid.” In 1715 Johann Caspar Fischer had composed a set of preludes and fugues in 20 different keys called Ariadne Musica. Four years later, Johann Mattheson wrote a user’s manual in figured-bass playing that gave two examples in each of the 24 keys. It was left to Bach, however, to give us the first real music in keys like C-sharp major and E-flat minor. Twenty-two years later, in 1744, he compiled another 24 preludes and fugues to complete what is now known as the “48.” It is an inexhaustible treasure trove of the greatest possible music, combining contrapuntal wizardry with his immense gift for expressing human emotion in all its forms. Bach amazes us by absolutely never running out of steam. In The Well-Tempered Clavier, we find a piece to suit every mood and every occasion.

In Bach’s time the word “clavier” did not denote any keyboard instrument in particular but meant either harpsichord, clavichord, spinet, virginal, or even the organ. An inventory taken at the time of his death lists many different instruments, but gives no details beyond their size and value. Bach reportedly preferred the clavichord for its ability to produce shadings and even vibrato, although surely its extreme delicacy must have made anything but the quietest pieces rather frustrating. Perhaps for this reason, Bach’s friend, the great organ and harpsichord builder Gottfried Silbermann, set about working on a fortepiano (following the first attempt at one by Cristofori) which Bach tried before his death. It is said that he found it interesting, but weak in the high register and too hard to play (complaints often voiced by pianists today about some modern grands!). His music requires great sprightliness, clarity, rapidity, warmth, strength, and subtle shadings that have to be matched by both instrument and player. If Bach’s music sounds “wrong” on the piano, then surely most of the blame must lie with the pianist. The instrument itself is, I find, ideal as it can be made to sing and dance as Bach demands. The difficulty is in making it sound easy.

Copyright © 2007 Angela Hewitt

Angela Hewitt, Piano
Angela Hewitt is a phenomenal artist who has established herself at the highest level over the last few years not least through her superb, award-winning recordings for Hyperion. Completed in 2005, her 11-year project to record all the major keyboard works of Bach has been described as “one of the record glories of our age” (Sunday Times) and has won her a huge following. She has been hailed as “the pre-eminent Bach pianist of our time” (Guardian) and “nothing less than the pianist who will define Bach performance on the piano for years to come” (Stereophile). She has a vast repertoire ranging from Couperin to the contemporary. Her discography also includes CDs of Granados, Beethoven, Rameau, Chabrier, Olivier Messiaen, the complete solo works of Ravel, the complete Chopin nocturnes and impromptus, and three discs devoted to the music of Couperin. Her recordings of the complete solo keyboard concertos of J. S. Bach with the Australian Chamber Orchestra entered the billboard charts in the US only weeks after their release, and were named Record of the Month by Gramophone magazine. The first of a series of CDs featuring the music of Schumann will be released in 2007.

Ms. Hewitt has performed throughout North America and Europe as well as in Japan, Australia, Singapore, New Zealand, Israel, China, Mexico, Turkey, and the former Soviet Union. Highlights of recent seasons include her debuts in Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, and with The Cleveland Orchestra, as well as a North American tour with the Australian Chamber Orchestra. Her recitals have taken her to the festivals of Edinburgh, Osaka, Prague, Hong Kong, Schleswig-Holstein, Brescia/Bergamo, and Oslo, to name but a few. Her frequent Wigmore Hall and Royal Festival Hall recitals in London sell out months in advance. As a chamber musician she has joined international artists at Lincoln Center and London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall, and in June 2007 her recording of the Bach gamba sonatas with German cellist Daniel Mueller-Schott was released.

Ms. Hewitt’s entire 2007–08 season will be devoted to performances of the complete Bach Well-Tempered Clavier in major cities all over the world, including London (Royal Festival Hall), New York (Carnegie Hall), Los Angeles, Berkeley, Portland, Vancouver, Denver, Ottawa, Toronto, Mexico City, Bogota, Singapore, Tokyo, Seoul, Macao, Sydney, Melbourne, Warsaw, Milan, Lisbon, Venice, Bilbao, Zurich, Stuttgart, Glasgow, Pretoria, and Cape Town. A special DVD lecture-recital on her interpretation of the music of J. S. Bach will be released by Hyperion at the beginning of her world tour, in September 2007.

In July 2005, Angela Hewitt launched her own Trasimeno Music Festival in the heart of Umbria near Perugia. Now an annual event, it draws an international audience to the Castle of the Knights of Malta in Magione, on the shores of Lake Trasimeno. Seven concerts in seven days feature Ms. Hewitt as a recitalist, chamber musician, song accompanist, and conductor, working with both established and young artists of her choosing.

Born into a musical family (her father was the Cathedral organist in Ottawa, Canada) Angela Hewitt began her piano studies at age three, performing in public at four and a year later winning her first scholarship. During her formative years, she also studied violin, recorder, and classical ballet. At nine she gave her first recital at Toronto’s Royal Conservatory of Music where she later studied. She then went on to learn with French pianist, Jean-Paul Sévilla, at the University of Ottawa. She won First Prize in Italy’s Viotti Competition (1978) and was a top prizewinner in the International Bach competitions of Leipzig and Washington, DC, as well as the Schumann Competition in Zwickau, the Casadesus Competition in Cleveland, and the Dino Ciani Competition at La Scala, Milan. In 1985 she won the Toronto International Bach Piano Competition.

Angela Hewitt was named Gramophone’s Artist of the Year in 2006. She was awarded the first ever BBC Radio 3 Listener’s Award (Royal Philharmonic Society Awards) in 2003. She was made an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2000, and is a fellow of the Royal Society of Canada. She was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2006. She has lived in London since 1985 but also has homes in Ottawa, Canada, and Umbria, Italy.

For more information, visit www.angelahewitt.com and www.bachworldtour.com.