Open Well-Tempered Clavier: a Kickstarter Campaign For Open Source Bach 70
rDouglass writes "The Open Goldberg Variations team has launched a new project to make an open source, public domain version of J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. The work is significant because of its enormous influence on musicians and composers throughout history. A new studio recording, a new digital MuseScore score (with support for MusicXML and MIDI), as well as all source materials (multitrack WAV, lossless FLAC) will be provided as libre and gratis downloads. New to the project are publisher GRIN Verlag, as well as record label PARMA Recordings. GRIN and PARMA will produce and distribute the physical score and double CD, even though the digital versions are to be widely available and in the public domain. Their enthusiasm for the project runs counter to the general publishing and music industry's fear of digital file sharing, and shows growing momentum for finding new models to make free music commercially sustainable."
Re:Open source? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:OK. I can do this for $50. (Score:4, Insightful)
Starving Music Student here. I trained as a performer. IU. Got graduate school funding at Cinci, Cleveland, Julliard, and Eastman. Basically the best music schools in the nation. I chose academics rather than performance, however, because of arthritis that would cripple me by age 50. But, if you were looking for a good representative of a very compentent collegiate musician, that's me. (I've also won an audition for professional 52 week symphony orchestras, but didn't take the gig because I went into academia instead -- and those are jobs with hundreds of applicants per vacency, and that's only because thousands of wannabes don't even bother sending a tape to actually win an audition)
I wouldn't dream of making a recording of key pieces in the repertory of my instrument. (Viola/Violin) Nobody would want to hear it. I sure wouldn't do something like the WTK (If I were a pianist) or the Cello Suites/Violin Sonatas and Partitas. Sure, I've performed them all more than once, and can teach them all, but I wouldn't dare put a microphone in front of me. And, I wouldn't dio it for 500 bucks. I wouldn't even take that for just one of the suites/sonatas/partitas. (It takes a long time to prepare something to that level, even though I know them quite intimately) I don't even leave my house to play at a gig for less than 150 bucks. That's a crappy wedding or a funeral. If you want me to go to a rehearsal, it's at least a hundred more. (Still cheaper than most tradesmen though)
You have obviously not rented a recording studio. Even a crappy one is expensive. Try gettting access to a really great piano for free too. Even if we have your utopia of cheapo student playing in a recital hall at their university with a crappy microphone, the student workers recording the WTK getting work/study wages, with the many hours that this would take, would cost more than 500 bucks.
TL;DR -- Starving Music Student=not good enough for people with an ear. Recording studios are expensive. It's impressive how cheaply they can do this already!
Get off my lawn.
Re:Aack! Not on a piano again! (Score:4, Insightful)
In agreement with Atmchicago, I have to disagree with you here. He wrote them for the clavichord, and that instrument has a specific sound. There are people who record on the clavichord, but as a performance instrument it's quite lacking in volume and is only appropriate for small rooms. Also, the clavichord wasn't really Bach's ideal instrument, as it gave the performer no ability to play soft and loud. Bach's writings were clear about his frustrations with this limitation, which is the main reason the Piano took off like it did.
The key to playing Bach on the piano (as well as Mozart and lots of other pre-Romantic composers) is to use the sustain pedal sparingly if at all, to maintain the clean sound. Glenn Gould was a master at performing music with a clean sound, and there are many other pianists who do this quite well, such as Angela Hewitt.
If you listen to Gould's 1981 recording of the Bach's Goldberg variations [youtube.com], he achieved (with a Yamaha piano rather than his usual Steinway) a very distinct bell-like and clean tone, very dry without a hint of the lushness and sentimentality of the "traditional" Romantic sound the modern piano was designed for. Gould was one of the best at getting this sound, but he's definitely not the only one.
Re:Aack! Not on a piano again! (Score:4, Insightful)
The fact that Bach's compositions reflect "frustrations with the limitations" of the instrument is probably the best argument for performing them on that instrument: built into the structure of the pieces are all the best-effort inventions to push the boundary of those limitations (which tend to get lost, or simply rendered irrelevant, in piano performances). Bach may have preferred to write and perform on a piano-forte, but he knew what instrument he was primarily writing for.
The limitations of pre-piano keyboard instruments for large-scale performance halls don't seem to be a big problem if you're focusing on making a recording (rather than giving a big live performance). With modern recording technology, we really live in a golden age for more intimate chamber music --- you no longer have to be wealthy enough to hire a private orchestra to enjoy "small-scale" productions in the comfort of your own home on a pair of headphones or speakers. The emphasis on making instruments big and loud enough to fill a concert hall (much of the drive behind the development of the piano) is less important if most of your listeners will be via a digital recording anyway.
I have nothing particularly against piano performances of these pieces; they can be quite enjoyable and musically well-done. Gould's work is well done, as is Ishizaka's previously released set of the Goldberg Variations. My objection here is that, if you present something as intended to be a "reference" edition for hearing and understanding Bach, that ought to include presenting the specific instrumental limitations that Bach was working with/around (rather than erasing Bach's efforts for what he "might have done" in a world where the piano became popular a few decades earlier).