Brent Yee( G, 23-) on all the different ways to play Bach
The Wykehamist
The Bach Prize: Tombling Pot
Brent Yee( G, 23-) on all the different ways to play Bach
J
. S. Bach died 276 years ago, and with him, the Baroque; yet, in a way, he still lives on through his music. Through his partitas, concertos, sonatas, cantatas, and fugues, he remains one of the most performed and recorded composers in the Western canon. There’ s a certain unique appeal to Bach that sets him apart from his contemporaries. Part of it lies in the architecture of his harmony: where other composers of the period move through keys with relative predictability, Bach treats tonality as a kind of drama, and each modulation feels both inevitable and surprising. Another part of this is his contrapuntal logic, especially his sense of how every voice has its own melodic life, and yet, all fit together with an almost mathematical precision. It is these exact qualities that make Bach so unforgiving to perform: there’ s nowhere to hide when playing Bach, and any technical flaws or stylistic shortcomings are laid bare for the world to see; and this year’ s Bach prize was no different, putting Winchester’ s best musicians to exactly that test.
The competition started in Chapel, with two organists— Felix Wu( G, 24-) and Morgan Hayes( H, 22-)— up in the organ loft. Felix’ s rendition of In dir ist Freude, BWV 615 had a great sense of structure to it, especially in how he kept the tone and the pulse of the hymn under great control. Despite the cantus firmus( the primary melodic line) being slightly lost amongst the inner voices, Felix did a good job of keeping the tempo alive, whilst not being overly metronomic. Meanwhile, Morgan’ s performance of Sei gegrüßet, Jesu gütig, BWV 768 featured a constant cantus firmus that was steady and audible across the two variations he played. The theme-and-variations structure of the partita was also well presented, and though I thought there could have been a greater contrast in character between the two variations, it felt like a journey with a proper destination, rather than a simple sequence of unrelated pieces.
Methinks BHGC approves...
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