Word: bache
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Playing Beethoven is a formidable, at times an impossible, undertaking. Perhaps Indjic's failure in this effort lay in not, in either a musical or a spiritual sense, listening for the inner voices. Beethoven is at all times a contrapuntist--essentially a fellow traveller with Bach. Because Indjic failed to convey this essence his performances of the two sonates were generally uninteresting and at times annoying. Nor did Indjic seem to be aware of the overall structure of the works. The first movement of Op. 111 is an uncanny mirror of Beethoven's temperament--taking ideas and treating them...
Most interesting in ways was the performance of the Bach E major Violin Concerto by James Oliver Buswell IV. It was practically unconducted, and that created obstacles to the flow from composer to listener. Buswell's head and body gestures did not keep the orchestra together or effect good ritardandi, and the reduced orchestra sounded best in the parts of the slow movement that Buswell actually conducted. Here he created a clearer pulse, sensitive phrasing of the bass line, and even, mysteriously, better intonation...
DESPITE problems, technique was good enough so that the music was presumably moving along as Buswell intended, and his approach was ill-suited to Bach. Rhythm in Bach grows from phrasing, not phrasing from meter; the over-all shape results from the growth of phrases rather than from dynamics or metric energy. The performance struck me as metrical in its phrasing, and in places, the bass line was simply un-phrased...
...musical terms, the force of Bach is in relatively inner things. Feeling is not expressed, to be incorporated again by the listener, but remains inner throughout the conveying process. Thus Saturday evening's performance of the E major concerto achieved vigor but not inner focus...
...audience and performers on Saturday night were caught up in enjoyment of the music. The Bach Society may be developing as devoted a following in the community as John Adams has in the orchestra...