CONCERTS

As always, I feel unable to review concerts by people who very often are friends of mine, but I will try to add comments that might be of interest.

Friday, Oct. 20: Gerald Hambitzer
on two instruments by Burkhard Zander, Nrs. 35 (the 2 Pachelbel pieces) and 36.
1. J.S. Bach - Suite BWV 818a Amin. Gerald added ornaments throughout and a mini cadenza in the second-to-last bar of the "Fort gai". In both the Courante and Sarabande he played longing dissonant seconds chords in main cadences that were very convincing. The Menuet and Gigue both were fast at about 60 per measure, which gave them enormous drive. 2. JCF Fischer - Praeludium and Chaconne Gmaj from "Musicalisches Blumen-Büschlein".
The prelude (Nr. VIII) has a harpeggiando centre section where Gerald's improvisations made the instrument sound like an organ, the Chaconne had a fast pulse of about 40 per measure.
3. Johann Pachelbel - Aria and Variations Gmin from "Hexachordum Apollinis",
played with a constant andante pulse that freed the small notes in the descant, and the Aria was repeated at the end.
4. Pachelbel - the Dmaj Ciacona (the one in 3/2) - fast and virtuoso, the audience forgot the program-waiving good manners and broke out into bravos and applause.
5. Domenico Scarlatti - Sonata Bmin K. 87.
A polyphonic piece which suited the clavichord extremely well.
6. Scarlatti - Sonata Dmaj K. 119. This piece sounded more modern and revolutionary on the clavichord than it sounds on the harpsichord. Gerald filled it with minute crescendi, decrescendi and sforzati that gave it a gypsy drive. Both the Scarlattis were a revelation for the clavichord repertoire.
7. J.C. Bach - Sonata Dmaj op.5 Nr. 2.
On this one, I missed the fortepiano in the first movement, because J.C. is playing with Janissaries register effects. In the other movements, Gerald played all repeats with adornments.
8. CPE Bach - Fantasia Fmaj Wq. 59,5
Highly expressive, and with stunning harpeggi.
9. Wolfgang Amadé Mozart - Sonata Ebmaj KV 282
The final Allegro in particular had sharp pp-ff contrasts that were very convincing. For expressive outer notes, Gerald would depress the key with both the 4th and 5th finger of the right hand simultaneously, which gave them an intense and lasting quality.
10. As an encore, Gerald played the Sarabande from the French Suite BWV 816.

Saturday, Oct. 21: Thomas Leutenegger and Michel Bignens
1 + 2: William Byrd - The Passinge Measures: the nynthe Pavian; and the Galliarde to it played by Thomas Leutenegger on a triple-fretted clavichord by Thomas Steiner.
Then, Michel Bignens took the stage, beginning with the same instrument:
3. Why aske you, from the Fitzwilliam.
4. William Byrd - La Volta
And then Michel switched to his "gemein Clavichord" copy by Yannick van Hove, for a listening experience which none of us had been through before. This clavichord has a detachable "dust cover" with roses, and using this and changing lid positions, Michel played with ever more silent sounds that forced the audience into extreme concentration. It was the sound of silence that Michel explored, and which became a meta-theme of his concert.
5. Byrd - Callino Casturame
6. Byrd - Alman, from the Fitzwilliam
These two pieces were played without dust cover, lid wide open. And then the Sweelinck treatise of silence began, first with the same open clavichord setup:
7. Ian Pieterszoon Sweelinck - Toccata Primi Toni SwWV 286
8. Sweelinck - Esce mars SwWV 321.
Then the lid was drawn forward to a 60 degree angle for the
9. Sweelinck - Mein junges Leben hat ein Endt SwWV 324.
Then, the lid was pushed back to a 90 degree angle, but the dust cover was put on top of the strings:
10. Sweelinck - Unter der Linden grüne SwWV 325v Then, the lid was nearly closed, it was only held open by the width of the stick, and this for the climax, the
11. Sweelinck - Paduana Lachrymae, SwWV 328.
And in this position, Michel would play ppp notes! They were the softest notes that I ever have heard from a clavichord, but they were audible even in the last row, as I found out by asking people who had sat there. After this, the arc of silence moved upward again, the lid went back into the 90 degree position, but with the dust cover still on.
12. Sweelinck - Toccata a 4 SwWV 298
13. Sweelinck - Die flichtig Nimphae SwWV 331
During the break, the experience was subject to hot debate. The Sweelinck alone had lasted 43 minutes, and it had asked for a concentration that for some simply had been too much. For those that had held on, it had been a ride to a peak that had been a trough of loudness.
After the break, Thomas Leutenegger had the second part of the concert for himself, on a Hubert 1772 copy by Thomas Steiner.
14. J.S. Bach - Partita VI Emin BWV 830
What I liked best was the final Gigue, because Thomas hadn't fallen into the Ferguson trap of tripletting this masterpiece to boredom. He played long-short-short/short-short-long as such and not as one-two-three-one-two-three.

Sunday, Oct. 22: Marcia Hadjimarkos on a Hubert 1772 copy by Thomas Steiner
Like Gerald Hambitzer, Marcia hadn't organised her concert around a theme, but played what she thought was a sequence of pieces which would make artistic sense for herself and the audience, and like with Gerald, this worked much better than any construed concept.
1. Erik Satie - Gnossiennes 1, 2, 3
Very jazzy, typically with short-long-short percussive bass notes, and you didn't miss the Steinway a bit.
2. CPE Bach - Sonata Amin Wq. 57,2.
Fabulous virtuosity, always an identifiable meter even in silence, and one never missed the internal relationship of all three movements, they were played as one extended arc.
3. Philippe Forget - Petite Suite pour Clavichorde.
This was the piece that had won 2nd prize in the British Clavichord Society composition contest, and Marcia put it in between two CPE Bach pieces for a reason: Forget wrote them as character pieces describing real people, and the reminiscences to the role model were audible. On top, the people described were none but Marcia herself and her children, so in the last movement called "Waltzing M…" we could hear Marcia interpreting Forget's interpretation of herself by herself. It was a pity we could not record it, because there never was a more "authentic" setup: the interpret interpreting a composer's interpretation of the interpret.
4. CPE Bach - Preussische Sonate Bbmaj Wq. 48,2
Again, I was impressed by Marcia's virtuosity, particularly in the left hand jumps of the Allegro, and how wide the breath and the arc of long phrases reached.
5. Béla Bartók - Romanian Folk Dances
Here the instrument shared the spotlight. Its voluminous bass was ideal for the beat of this music, and one never missed the pedal of the piano which Bartók asks for. A wonderful example of how one can be true to music with another instrument than it was written for, and an example of reverse authenticity - playing a music with an instrument that is older than the music itself.
6. J.S. Bach - Englische Suite 2 Amin BWV 807
Personally, I would have liked the concert to end with one of the experiments that we had heard before, and not with a retreat to classical standard clavichord repertoire. But then, this is just my private and slightly anarchistic taste. There was one very technical item that I found noteworthy: We all hate the print layout of the Sarabande in the NBA edition. You have the two unadorned parts on the right page, and the two adorned parts after a page turn, so in order to play them as A1-A2-B1-B2 you continuously have to flip the page back and forth, or you have to resort to a copier. Marcia was playing from something that looked Koenemann to me, and the unadorned part was on the left side, and the adorned one on the right, and everything was easy.
For her two encores, Marcia played
7. Pachelbel - Ciacona in C (in memory of his birthday)
8. Yann Tiersen - Sur le fil
Yann Tiersen is the composer of the film music to "Goodbye Lenin", and we were back to Satie-like left-hand basses and rhythms, and this humble reviewer was very happy again.

It was a memorable event, in particular as Sally Fortino and her helpers from the Swiss Clavichord Society had prepared everything smoothly and with care - after the concert on Saturday, all of us had been invited to a dinner in the huge anteroom to the concert room in Sally's gallery, and there was nobody who didn't say that this was the nicest clavichord weekend meeting venue ever, and why didn't we do it this way all the time. To which one can only reply that not all the time do you have such a perfect match of all important components.