Aproximaciones teóricas y modelos sobre el SQT

Mirroring Bach's Vivaldi concerto exercise, as practice for my experiments on Bach, I arranged some Chopin Etudes for organ, allowing me to tackle the question of medium (faced by Bach earlier) in a context where there was an expectation of virtuosity. In this way, the performance aspect could not be ducked. The four I tackled (Op. 10, no. 1; no. 2; no. 5; Op. 25, no. 1) all afforded very useful technical pointers for how I would process the Bach. What might have seemed a whimsical preamble became a stepping-stone equipping me to tackle the Bach Prelude more productively. They struck me not as technical pianistic studies but as opportunities to study compositional techniques.

Chopin was not unique in dwelling on Bach, with Schumann deeply studying the Well- Tempered Clavier too (Chissell 1988: 27-8). Chopin's Op. 28 Preludes (1839) match Bach's 48 (Samson 1996: 157-8)—largely written on Majorca with the Bach to hand—and Schumann asserted that the romantic composers (mostly Germans, yet including Sterndale Bennett and Chopin) had a "most thorough knowledge of Bach" (in Whittall 1987: 37). Yet whilst Wulstan (2015: 157) somewhat tortuously sees the Chopin C major Prelude as directly modelled on the Bach, Finlow (in Samson 1992: 70) superimposes Chopin's harmonies for Op. 10 no. 1 (from the Etudes) onto the WTC prelude figuration to greater effect. This is aided by Chopin who, in baroque fashion, kindly employs a single Affekt for each (Samson 1996: 106). While Chopin's Etudes only obliquely reference Bach, I was not aiming for what Wagner called "Applied Bach" (quoted by Wolff in Bozarth ed. 1990: 10), but I wished to see if Chopin's music was a good teacher as it would in some way remedy his own life of teaching drudgery (in Cortot 2013: 24-6). I wanted to try technical procedures on a composer who was not organ-friendly, although it appears that Chopin did, on occasion, play the organ (see Rottermund 2008: 82, which details that he played Schubert's Die Gestirne at a funeral).

96 CHOPIN Etudes (Musical Examples 1-4)

Counter: (Ex. 1)

The arrangement of the Black-note Etude might appear to be a straight transcription. Those with perfect pitch, however, will realise that the title is incorrect, since it is now in F major. This, incidentally, increases the difficulty, since the danger of clipping an unwanted white note is greater than accidentally hitting an equivalently unwanted black-note since they do not exist. After missing the highest note (a single mistake is often attributed to a performer's inadequacy, though here it is due to the keyboard running out of keys), Chopin's final black-note cascade is not shifted to F but is inflated to a full and gratuitous black-note glissando. This 'lapse' (in tonality and taste) is a clue that the entire work has been delivered on false pretences. This subversion of the title (the black-note Etude is played on white-notes) was useful in considering aspects of textual play. Whitening the black notes was also a handy demonstration of the photographic negative metaphor.

Ex. 1

Original: (Ex. 2)

The A minor chromatic Etude is famous for its rapid and legato chromatic scales in the right hand. As one of the purposes of this transcription was to make a technically demanding piece for organ, I redistributed the middle section for left hand and supplied a pedal part. More significantly, the organ's particular sound-sources were material to

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developing the work. Organs almost always have stops that do not sound at the written pitch, the most normal being differences of octave (so a 16ft stop, often on the pedals, will produce a note an octave below concert pitch). But there are other slightly rarer options, where notes can sound a 12 or a 17 higher, and these are often used to colour a sound in a particular way. (A note played with the 12th higher will sound more like a mellow clarinet sound, while one with the 17th higher will sound more like an oboe.) In the A minor Etude, I create canons with various combinations of these sounds so the piece mutates even though the outlying frame of 29 bars remains the same.

Ex. 2

Spare: (Ex. 3)

The C major Etude has "arpeggios based on a harmonic sequence", a description fitting the Bach Prelude (and many others). That Chopin thought of the Bach as a frame is unsubstantiated (and unsubstantiatable), though the willingness to explore plausible resonances with other musics is something that composers employ. Chopin, with the greater range of available octaves on the piano, composed it in 4/4, but with no organ keyboards possessing the uppermost piano octave, I resolved to modify the piece into 3/4. This results in a few shifts of harmonic rhythm, enabling greater rhythmic play. While Chopin wrote 4 sets of 4 semiquavers per bar, some of my resulting patterns of 3 sets of four semiquavers contract to become 4 sets of three. Although it is clearly the same piece, the change of meter means that it cannot be just listened along to in quite the same way.

98 Ex. 3

Strange: (Ex. 4)

The Aeolian Harp Etude might appear to be a straightforward transcription, but the change of medium forces some alterations: arpeggios become scales, since fast repeating notes (during which the pianist might get louder) sound ineffective and unpurposeful on an organ. Judicious textual changes also enable chord figurations to be playable without any sustaining pedal. More significantly (though inaudiable) is the way the right hand melody is processed. Chopin wishes the upper-notes to sing over the harp-like undergrowth, so the organ-part is notated mathematically precisely (to the nearest demisemiquaver) with no single bar being alike. The result (in a resonant building) sounds perfectly at ease with the musical line expected of Chopin. For example, stressed notes generally last longer, and subsequently repeated ones have a gasp of anticipation. Also, as a repeated note always needs to be lifted before being played again, the whole issue of how long each melodic note should be is raised. While Chopin might never have worried about that, I am indicating that one can map onto music different expectations and possibilities whilst retaining something of the original conception. After the initial upbeat, I trace over the whole piece a sequence of mathematical series where each bar (of four notes) is unrepeated and I note it here:

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5. 6564 7654 6576 8654 7567 8765 7565 6785 6465 7545 6467 8565 7467 8463 5342 6453 4564 5676 4675 6586 7465 6473 4565 7576 5687 8676 7584 5786 8637 8675 7564 6784 5684 6578 7475 3456 7464 3567 8575 4354 5343 6453 5432 I also changed Chopin's dedicational ascription to become a musical direction so A Madame

Contessa d'Agoult becomes Amada me con tessa da goult, which in a sort of dog Italian could be

tendentiously construed to mean 'lovingly, but with buckets of taste'.

Ex. 4

In short, working with the following techniques ('translation', 'mutation', 'contraction', and 'modeification') was valuable in giving me fresh ears to hear the potential behind the Bach. The four main musical procedures (which can also occur in combination) became the underlying principles of acting in the four modalities provided by Manley Hopkins:

Counter translation is a variety of negating the notes. Original mutation is a variety of distorting the notes.

Spare contraction is a variety of sifting the note, producing less material (and the

reverse could be termed inflation).

Strange modeification is a mapping of one idea onto another which proves fruitful

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Section V Methodology

Chapter 3

Robbing "the Golden Treasury of Sebastian"

In this Chapter, I detail the various technical approaches that employed in Op. 48, and demonstrate their originality and debt to other musics and art.

The Prelude in C from The Well-Tempered Clavier (Book 1) is a famous piece, known to a vast range of folk on many levels. One commentator sees it as an evocation of "natural sound" (Dahlhaus 1989: 149), presumably because it uses arpeggios (even though the opening gesture is not the harmonic series in its prime form). To some, it may even be the prime instance of classical music, so embedded as part of our musical furniture that we forget what a rather strange piece it is (Williams 2004: 170). Written in style luthé for Clavier, and a wohltemperirte one at that (see Rasch in Williams ed. 1985: 293-310), it already exhibits a dislocation of genre, since keyboards have the ability to play composite chords rather than one note at a time. With Aladdin's Lamp, I explore one player playing two keyboards, which not only dislocates genre (and perhaps the player's arms) but questions the idea that music is readily compartmentalisable. Like Aladdin's cave, Bach's music contains a remarkable wealth of information. Wesley's comment about Bach being a "golden treasury" was in response to Handel's pilfering from other composers for ideas (in Goehr 1992: 165). While acknowledging that Handel's genius generally managed to improve matters considerably, Wesley's point is that Bach's approach is richer. Deliberate borrowings or stealings are one thing, but music's more ocean-like essence makes it difficult to decide which bit of water belongs to whom. Op. 48 takes this further, since the new works are more wide-ranging than Handel or others would have contemplated.