Johann Sebastian Bach - Chorales I - Fantasia super Komm heiliger Geist, BWV 651

[douddy21]

J'adore ce dialogue de "specialistes" qui finissent par ne plus s'interesser du tout à l'oeuvre elle même, encore moins à l'auteur et a sa personnalité pour ne finir que par ergoter sur le tempo, le qualité du public "église" ou non et je crois savoir que Bach n'a jamais donné d'indications particulière. C'est à l'organiste et a sa sensibilité de trouver les couleurs qui lui conviennent dans la registration et le rythme qui ressent à la lecture de l'oeuvre et à son environnement historique.

[novoprodmex]

aunque cabe mencionar hoy en dia el agradecimiento a los alemanes por ser maestros en la creacion de los organos monumentales el cual en toda centro america y latinoamerica no tenemos una sola empresa que reviva su estructura fisica

although today include thanking the Germans for being teachers in the creation of monumental organs which in all Central America and Latin America do not have a single company to revive its physical structure

[micangess]

Questo è Hans Fagius, vero?

[wcbroccoli]

Forse.

This does sound like a Hans Fagius CD recording I own of this same piece, though my CD has better sound quality.

[micangess]

Io credo che sia proprio lui. L'organo è proprio quello e il modo di procedere, agogica, tocco, fraseggio sono i suoi. Non può essere una coincidenza. Io possiedo la sua omnia per organo.

[GerardvanR]

Has Bach indicated that this piece must be played prestissimo?

[wcbroccoli]

What are you babbling about?

Prestissimo is more than 200 bpm.

The 1/4 note gets the beat in this piece, which is being played at about 90 bpm,

which is in the range of Andante (76-108 bpm)!

The pedal cantus firmus, which moves mostly in 1/2 notes and 1/4 notes, determines the tempo. Not the 16th notes in the manual parts.

[GerardvanR]

The numbers you mention are inventions of the manufacturers of metronomes. When you hear this organist playing this piece in a big church with much reverberation you can only follow the cantus firmus in the pedal. But I want to hear clearly all the beautiful polyphonic lines in the manual. When you are sitting in that big church listening to this piece in this tempo the 16th notes become only a pulp of sound.

[wcbroccoli]

Portable metronomes have been around since the early 19th c.

The numbers I mention are not the inventions of manufacturers of metronomes.

They are the result of the application of metronome & tempo markings by composers since Beethoven.

The term "prestissimo" (literally, "the most presto") has no practical meaning unless you put a BPM to it & compare it to the actual BPM of this performance, which corresponds to Andante.

Maybe you'd prefer Adagio (66-76 bpm).

[GerardvanR]

The numbers on metronomes are very undistinguist numbers and Bach lived in an earlier period than composers after Beethoven. Prestissimo means litterally "very fast". For as fast as possible composers uses the indication "presto quando sia possibile" (for example Scarlatti).

[wcbroccoli]

"Prestissimo" is the superlative of "presto", and therefore means "the MOST presto", in other words, as fast as you can play.

"Presto, quando sia possibile" means "presto, WHEN possible".

But you really meant "presto, sia quanto possibile", which means "presto, as much as possible".

In Bach's time they could still count BPM. They had timepieces. In the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the tactus was measured by pulse.

[wcbroccoli]

Bach lived before the introduction of the *portable* metronome, but not before the age of devices that measured time in minutes. They could still count BPM.

In the Middle Ages and Renaissance they measured tactus by pulse.

But whether or not Bach quantified prestissimo in BPM is irrevelant, since he never indicated that tempo.

And there's nothing to prevent us from doing so for the sake of discussion of how fast this performance really is.

It's about 90 BPM. Not 200+ BPM

[wcbroccoli]

In answer to your question: "Has Bach indicated that this piece must be played prestissimo?"

He did not indicate that this piece must be played prestissimo.

He did not give any tempo indication.

Nor did he indicate that it cannot be played prestissimo.

Nor is it being played prestissimo (over 200 bpm).

It's being played around 90 bpm which is in the range of andante (76-108 bpm).

[GerardvanR]

You must not see the word prestissimo I used litterally. I used it in a figurative way ,because, during listening this piece it felt very fast (= prestissimo) to me.

[wcbroccoli]

But you surely know that Bach didn't give ANY tempo indication for this piece.

You used "prestissimo"sarcastically, implying this performance it too fast.

But it doesn't sound too fast to me, to this organist, or to the many organists I've heard play it at similar tempos.

And as I pointed out, the actual tempo of this performance is about 90 BPM, which is in the range of what is TODAY considered andante.

I think you would agree that andante is not at all fast.

[wcbroccoli]

Appending &fmt18 to the URL might give you a better sound. But YouTube audio quality is lo-fi, at best, and can give a very misleading impression of the true sound of the original recording.

My CD of this same piece -- played at this tempo by Hans Fagius on the reconstructed Baroque organ (1724) in Kristine Church in Falun, Sweden --- sounds very clear on my audio system, clearer than this YouTube version.

[wcbroccoli]

Even with the lousy YouTube audio quality, I can still distinguish the mostly 2 to 3 voices of the manual parts. The 1 measure plus main subject and counter subject are clear, though the volume of the pedal part tends to drown out the inner voices a bit.

[GerardvanR]

You are speaking about recorded music, not live music. I speak about music which has to be listened to in a big church with reverberation, live. Then this tempo is too fast, because, live in a big church, you hear only a vague foggy sound, and the parts in the manual are too unclear to distinguish them. The discussions about tempi are mostly discussions about recorded music but we have to talk always about live music because the space where music sounds and the instruments are important too.

[wcbroccoli]

Is there much difference? I'm speaking about recordings of organ music performed in churches. I assume such recordings faithfully capture much the same sound heard by the organists and the recording engineers during the recording sessions.

Surely this organist didn't think it was too fast when he made the recording.

I believe I have this same performance on CD, which, when played on my audio system, has more clarity and definition than this lo-fi YouTube copy.

[GerardvanR]

I think organist should play their music in tempi at which the listeners in the church can hear ev'ry detail of the piece, for this are the tempi the composers had in mind. The composers didn't always write their pieces for themselves but for an audience in the church. You listen by the ears of the organist and the sound-enginiers. These ears are the microphones, which are mostly situated very near by the organ. Perhaps you understand me better now.

[wcbroccoli]

As far as I'm concerned, this organist plays at an appropriate tempo.

The same subject and countersubject and appoggiatura motifs are repeated throughout. We want to hear the affect, not each 16th note as those all were of equal importance.

I do not like that other YouTube recording at 64 bpm. The cantus firmus is played so slowly it lacks the harmonic direction that this faster performance reveals.

[GerardvanR]

You don't still understand me. I will give you one advise: take your Hi-Fi to a big church with enough reverberation, like the St. Thomaschurch. Situate the sound-boxes near the organ with the volume as loud as the organ sounds in reality. Play this CD while you are sitting at least 30 metres from the boxes. What do you hear now? I think, only a foggy, unclear pulp of sound. Do you think Bach had this tempo in mind, playing this chorale for his audience in the church during the service?

[wcbroccoli]

That 64 bpm performance you thought was the "right tempo" wasn't any more clear that this one at 90 bpm! It was just slow and plodding, with a directionless pedal part that would have put Bach's congregation to sleep.

I've heard this piece live in church, at about this tempo. The AFFECT was glorious.

You still don't understand me.

YouTube sound quality is crap. You cannot draw any meaningful conclusions about the clarity & definition of the original recording from a YouTube copy.

[wcbroccoli]

What would that experiment prove?

You seem to think the recording was made in an anechoic chamber with the organist wearing a headset.

It was made in the church with reverberant acoustics, and no headset.

Therefore, the recording already includes the reverb contributed by the builidng's acoustics. So if we play back the recording in the church, the building will add more reverb to the recorded reverb, thereby distorting the sound.

[wcbroccoli]

You keep talking about Bach's audience, as though this were concert music instead of functional music for the liturgy of a particular congregation that had it's favorite and traditional hymns.

You play this for most audiences today, and they have no clue what's going on in the pedal part. They don't even know the hymn. Not so with Bach's "audience". They KNEW this hymn. And after the prelude, they would sing, not just one verse, but EVERY verse of this hymn.

[wcbroccoli]

Bach surely did NOT have in mind the slow tempo you contemplate (64 bpm) where the cantus firmus plods along as  mere bass notes of chords of painfully slow-changing harmonies, so slow it's barely recognizable as the hymn tune.

He wanted the pedal heard clearly as the hymn tune,and the manual parts heard for AFFECT.

You want slow, romantic performance --- so slow you can wave hello and goodbye to every 16th note as it passes by, even if the pedal part plods along ambiguously.

[wcbroccoli]

I really have no trouble hearing what needs to be heard. Bach was aiming for affect, not for the etching of every 16th note in detail.

I play in a viol consort that performs complex contrapuntal fantasias with complex rhythms with as many as 6 independent parts all going at the same time. We do not have to play slowly to get the right affect. But we do have to play fast enough to prevent the sound from becoming boring and directionless.

[wcbroccoli]

This is not a concert piece for a concert audience. It was functional music for the Weimar & Leipzig liturgies. Bach would have played it fast enough so that the congregation could easily recognize the hymn tune in the pedal. Afterwards, the congregation would sing the entire hymn, verse by verse.

The countepoints in the manual parts is symbolic fluff. It's the affect of the fluff the matters, not the fluff itself.

The counterpoints symbolize the Holy Ghost appearing as tongues of fire.

[GerardvanR]

You may not underrate the musical understanding of the audience in Bach's time. People had an excellent musical education, especially in the cities and at the courts. They had much better ears than most people today. They didn't only listen to the c.f. in the pedal. About the recording: organ music is always recorded with microphones with a small angle to diminish the reverberation. Our ears are "surround ears", that means: we hear all surround us, we hear more reverberation than you hear on CD

[wcbroccoli]

Few had much understanding of counterpoint. But they did understand AFFECT.

I never said they only listened to the cf in the pedal. I said the repetitious manual parts were intended to be heard for AFFECT, not for detail, and the hymn tune in the pedal was to be clearly heard as a such.

As I said, I've heard this piece live, at about THIS very typical tempo, in a church, and the AFFECT was glorious. None of the "fog" or "pulp" you predict.

[GerardvanR]

How do you know that Bach wrote such complicated fugal manual parts only for affect ,as a sort of sound-background? I agree with you that fast and virtuous playing gives great "affect", as you call it. But in barock period the word affect had an other meaning. It was not only sensation, as you had during that concert, but especially to join in the musical contents, and that cannot without clearly hearing the details, they must be heard right for the affect. Like you I don't like romantic playing

[wcbroccoli]

Because he repeats the same material over and over again.

The parts are busy, but not complicated. The 3 manual parts combine to form a more or less unbroken chain of 16ths notes. But rarely do 2 [arts play chains of simultaneous 16th notes for very long, unless he thins the texture to 2 parts.

The slower you play, the more you might perceive individual notes, but the less you will perceive the shape of the lines.

There's always a tradeoff between forest and trees.

[GerardvanR]

In barock music there are no long lines, as in romantaic music, but the groups of notes (the motifs) are important. You know the term "rhetoric"? When you want to play in a rhetoric way you have to emphazise the details (the words) and not the longer lines (the sentences). When you play too fast in a big church the audience cannot follow the rhetoric means of the composer and (we may hope) of the organist. I don't want to play only individual notes, that should be like a machine.

[wcbroccoli]

I really don't know what all the fuss is about.

I'm not having any difficulty comprehending this piece at this tempo.

It's much easier to hear at this 90 bpm tempo that the 64 bpm of that other YouTube video.

[wcbroccoli]

My own experience hearing live organ performances while sitting in a pew, or standing beside the organist, or playing the organ myself, suggest that a live hearing tends to be clearer, not less clear, than a CD.

We hear in "surround sound" because 2 ears make it easier to perceive the effect of sounds arriving at diifferent times or from originating from different locations. Audio engineers mimic this by using 2 or more mics. Our ear openings are smaller than any mic angle.

[GerardvanR]

This is exactly the dilemma of our time. We have to choose between the tempo of church music in recorded music and tempi we should choose during a live concert. Most musicians choose during a live concert the tempi of their cd's beacause of their fans. Their public wants to her them exactly play in the same way and at the same speed as they hear them on their cd's. A musician should have more courage to adapt their tempi to the measure of the reverb in the church.

[wcbroccoli]

I'd say they'd use narrow angle mics for the same we tend to face towards, rather than away from, the source of the sound: the better to hear it.

Even if you're right about reverb being more apparent to a live audience and therefore requiring a slower tempo, doesn't that suggest that a recorded performance that supposedly captures less reverb could be just as effective at a faster tempo, and should, in fact, be played faster than the live performance?

[GerardvanR]

In this last sentence you are quite right. It's therefore that modern musicians most likely play (and sing) church music faster than the composers of church music had in mind. Because of recording of this music, with only very few reverb, we all are infected by the pandemic "fastness virus". We want to hear all the details in an organ piece or a choir piece with as less reverb as possible. Therefore sound engineers use mics with a small angle positioned as close as possible near the instruments.

[KoopmansFanGranada]

@GerardvanR

"Bach could play with his feet faster than a lot of people could do with their hands"

Written by Forkel; so it doesn't seem really right to think that Bach would have never played in a fast tempo.

Affect.Reading Quantz a little bit I have understood that it is what the music wants to transmit us,what the composer wants with it,not what the performer does.Just listening to the notes and reading the title of the piece,it is obvious that the piece must be played in an astonishing way.

[angryjalapeno]

What's the rush? Is this Koopman?