Fontana, Michele
Bach - Klavierubung Part Ii
"A new original reinterpretation of the Klavierubung part II by Johann Sebastian Bach (Concerto Italiano, Overture in the French style and the addition of the Aria variata alla maniera italiana) which takes into account the modern interpretation and the new philological studies on baroque music transposed to the piano. 1735 was the year in which J.S. Bach published, entrusting it to the care of the engraver Christoph Weigel, the second part of his "Exercise for the keyboard", in German Clavier-four years after the publication of the first part, containing the six Partitas for harpsichord (BWV 825-830). The Italian taste is represented here by the classic concerto in tripartite form, in which tutti and solo alternate in a continuous dynamic game; the French manner, on the other hand, finds its synthesis in the genre of the Overture, in which, after the initial movement, that is the Overture itself, with the classic dotted style French, various dance movements follow one another. With these two pieces, the Concerto nach italienischen Gusto BWV 971, and the Overture nach Franzosischer Art BWV 831, Bach, in addition to offering an impeccable stylistic sample, continues the project begun four years earlier: the Concerto is in fact composed in the key of F major (the one missing in the six Partitas), while the Overture (originally written in C minor) is proposed in B minor, almost as if to close a compositional circle (remember that the first of the six Partitas is in B flat major). With the Concerto in the Italian style, Bach synthesizes his long experience in transcribing and reworking (both on the harpsichord and the organ) concertos by Vivaldi, Marcello and other Italian composers: he does so by writing his own concerto, conceived according to the same stylistic dictates. The Overture, on the other hand, consisting of a first tripartite movement and six dances in bipartite form that precede a final Echo, renounces the Allemande, a dance whose name evokes a Teutonic origin, and leaves room in the finale for a movement - ??the Echo, precisely - that is essentially based on the dynamic interplay between forte and piano and that represents a unicum in the genre. The performance of these two masterpieces, conceived by Bach for a harpsichord with two keyboards, takes on slightly different executive connotations when approached on a piano: the dynamic indications, for example, indicate, on the harpsichord, the use of one manual rather than the other, while the pianist, having to play everything on the same keyboard, will search for these nuances with his touch. Another issue, less present in these pieces, but crucial for example in the fourth part of the Clavier-Ubung, that is the Goldberg Variations, will be that of the crossing of the hands: while the use of two keyboards allows to avoid their collision, the execution on a single manual increases this risk. The choice of the instrument, more or less philological, does not penalize, however, the compositional balance of Bach, the freshness of his ideas and his language, the great lyricism that permeates these extraordinary pages, indeed, it enriches it with new possibilities."