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kenjariI think that Baroque music has a reputation for being a bit on the cerebral side, an intellectual pleasure, with its orderly counterpoint and harmonic clarity. This seems especially true of Bach, no doubt aided by the somewhat stern and formal portraits of him. While there is certainly truth to this, I have always heard another side to Baroque music in general, and Bach in particular.
What I hear is passion. It's a quality more commonly associated with 19th century music, but I think Baroque music is just as strongly permeated with it. It's a different way of expressing it, but I do hear it very clearly. I hear it in the forward propulsion of the pieces in faster tempi and in the rich lingering quality of pieces in slower tempi. I hear it in the intricate flicker of the ornamentation and the caress of the rapid passage work. I hear it in the depth and clarity of the harmonies. I hear it in the contrasts that are sometimes stark and sometimes more subtle. And I don't think it's just a product of my own personal lens. One of the elements of the early development of the Baroque style was an impulse towards expressing a wider range and greater intensity of emotional content. Composers strove to represent an affekt, or emotional state.(1)
Perhaps some of my perception of Baroque music as passionate comes from playing it, first as an organist, and now as a pianist. Playing Baroque music can be a surprisingly and deeply sensual experience. You have to let yourself be swept up in the forward motion of the faster pieces, while the slower ones demand that you attend to and savor each note. Then there are differences in touch required of the fingers, from an intense focus to the fluttering and flickering of fast runs and delicate ornaments. Sometimes the lines of counterpoint converge so that your hands are brought intimately close together so that they are very nearly intertwined, as in certain passages from the d minor prelude in the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2.
Baroque music is rightly admired for its craft, but there is also a depth of feeling in it that should be celebrated.
(1) From Grout and Palisca, A History of Western Music
What I hear is passion. It's a quality more commonly associated with 19th century music, but I think Baroque music is just as strongly permeated with it. It's a different way of expressing it, but I do hear it very clearly. I hear it in the forward propulsion of the pieces in faster tempi and in the rich lingering quality of pieces in slower tempi. I hear it in the intricate flicker of the ornamentation and the caress of the rapid passage work. I hear it in the depth and clarity of the harmonies. I hear it in the contrasts that are sometimes stark and sometimes more subtle. And I don't think it's just a product of my own personal lens. One of the elements of the early development of the Baroque style was an impulse towards expressing a wider range and greater intensity of emotional content. Composers strove to represent an affekt, or emotional state.(1)
Perhaps some of my perception of Baroque music as passionate comes from playing it, first as an organist, and now as a pianist. Playing Baroque music can be a surprisingly and deeply sensual experience. You have to let yourself be swept up in the forward motion of the faster pieces, while the slower ones demand that you attend to and savor each note. Then there are differences in touch required of the fingers, from an intense focus to the fluttering and flickering of fast runs and delicate ornaments. Sometimes the lines of counterpoint converge so that your hands are brought intimately close together so that they are very nearly intertwined, as in certain passages from the d minor prelude in the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2.
Baroque music is rightly admired for its craft, but there is also a depth of feeling in it that should be celebrated.
(1) From Grout and Palisca, A History of Western Music
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Date: 2008-06-18 01:48 pm (UTC)