Word: bache
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Even during his own lifetime, Bach long stood low on the list of important composers. His contemporaries placed both Telemann and Handle above him. They considered him primarily the virtuoso organist. The last days of church concert music left Bach with an often insurmoutable penury of players and singers. He must often have felt the decline of contemporary musicianship as he played the organ, directed the choir, and conducted the orchestra at the same time. To the end, he affirmed his dedication to the sacred music whose reign was then work on a secular fugue to write extremely religious chorale...
...nineteenth century found Bach's music difficult to perform in the Romantic style-their alternating piano-forte, their rubato, their sharp dynamic contrasts. If Bach's was difficult to adapt to their style, the nineteenth century decided, it was Bach's fault...
Albert Schweitzer, who almost single-handedly revived interest in Bach during the first decade of this century, happily list the few people who accepted and appreciated Bach's genius: Mendelssohn, Goethe, Schumann, Beethoven, Wanger, Liszt. Once the common opinion of only the greatest artists of the nineteenth century, that opinion is now generally accepted. Today we learn harmony from Bach's chorales and even Time Magazine has called him "The Fifth Apostle...
Nonetheless, the Harvard Summer School concert last week provided an example of last century's understanding of Bach. Pina Carmirelli, in a long black, sequined dress, exemplified the Romantic spirit in her performance. During the Bach violin-piano sonata in E minor, she presented one of the last Romantic interpretations of Bach. Schweitzer thinks that the sonata is unplayable today. He says that is can be played on a harpsichord and a violin with loosened bow to bring out the full flavor of the double-stopping. Wagner felt that the timber of the violin and the piano are naturally incompatible...
Madame Carmirelli attacked the first movement of the sonata at break-neck speed, despite the fact tat in Bach's time, both tempo and dynamics were much less varied than they have been since. Then, the slow movements and thew allegros more closely resembed each other in speed. In dynamics, Bach conceived of his works as built of solid, steady blocks of sound. Madame Carmirelli constantly shifted from pianist to forte and from slow to fast. It is true Bach wrote the sonatas as little "soul-states" as Schweitzer says, but he writes with polyphone rather than her extremes...