"You Can't Be Rote" - Harpsichordist Lillian Gordis on Keeping Bach Fresh

"You Can't Be Rote" - Harpsichordist Lillian Gordis on Keeping Bach Fresh

Lillian Gordis is a Franco-American harpsichordist born in Berkeley, California, and based in Paris. Her latest album is J.S. Bach: Partita No. 6, English Suite & Preludes and Fugues, released in 2026 on the French label Artalinna, and it’s one of my favorite records of the year. Listen on Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/us/album/1844680622] | Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/artist/4PwnbJTHbJn7UX7KeA1JhF] In this episode, Lillian talks about her approach to phrasing on the harpsichord: articulating independent voices, singing through her repertoire in rehearsal, and always resisting automatic performance. We talk about the technical challenges of performing on instruments that vary widely from venue to venue, and her decision to record from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book II. Visit Lillian’s website: lillian-gordis.com [https://lillian-gordis.com] And subscribe to the show’s Substack: A Year of Bach [https://yearofbach.substack.com/] Artists discussed: Harpsichordists / Early Music * Pierre Hantaï * Gustav Leonhardt * Nikolaus Harnoncourt * Jordi Savall * Le Poème Harmonique * Gesualdo Six * Graindelavoix * Il Giardino Armonico * La Petite Bande * Kathy Perl Pianists * Sviatoslav Richter * Andras Schiff * Glenn Gould * Lucas Debargue * Piotr Anderszewski * Alexander Kanterow * Daniil Trifonov * Yunchan Lim * Robert Levin TRANSCRIPT Evan Goldfine: [00:00:00] Welcome to the podcast, a Year of Bach. My name is Evan Goldfine, and today I welcome Lillian Gordis, who recently released an excellent double album of Bach on the Harpsichord. It features the sixth English Suite, the sixth Partita, and other selections from Bach’s deep catalog for the keyboard. This is her third album, and the other two feature works of Bach and Scarlatti. Lillian’s been focused fully on the harpsichord since childhood, and as a teenager, she moved to France to study with the great harpsichordist Pierre Hantaï, where she continues to live. She joins us from Paris today. Lillian, welcome. Lillian Gordis: Hi. Thank you for having me. I’m delighted to be here. Evan Goldfine: At first I’ll jump into fan mode for a minute and say that I think you pull off something pretty special in this recording and that’s reflective of your whole approach. I think your phrasing stretches notes and compresses others, and the two hands are phrased very independently from one another. And there’s no shame in fermatas or hanging on rubato for an especially long time. For me, it creates a sort of floating feeling and as I’ve written in the newsletter, it becomes sort of [00:01:00] trance-like, and I get really locked in. I think it’s really rare to hear that in a recording. I’d love to hear a little bit about your approach to phrasing and whether I’m picking up on something that you’re putting out there. Lillian Gordis: Yeah. First of all, thank you. I mean, I appreciate all of that. That’s exactly what I’m trying to do. I think the harpsichord is an instrument. You know, if you have a beautiful harpsichord, it sounds great. If you have a less beautiful harpsichord, it sounds less good. But, and I love harpsichords, but it is an instrument that has dynamic limitations and projection limitations, which is particularly an issue in obviously our modern world, where you’re playing in relatively big halls. And you’re playing recitals, which didn’t exist — you know, historically at all. The format did not exist at the time this music was written. And so I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to make the harpsichord an instrument that can project as far as possible and as widely as possible. I think the approaches for doing that on recording and in concert are a little bit different just because of the proximity of [00:02:00] microphones as compared to, say, the last row for an audience member. But I’ve kind of — I try to imitate voice as much as possible, particularly vocal ensembles and the way that polyphony and counterpoint come in and out of focus in the way that a vocal ensemble can do, which is obviously not necessarily the most self-evident thing technically to do on the harpsichord. But that’s something that really deeply appeals to me. That’s kind of what I hear in my head, especially with Bach, but also with other composers. And so figuring out, not just between the hands, but also between voices — where can I have a little bit of micro stagger? Where can I have more or less attack? I think a lot about the end of the note too, which is not necessarily something that came up a lot when I was studying, but the end of the note on the harpsichord when the jack comes back down and you stop the resonance — you know, that creates an accent too. And so using a lot of substitutions and shifting to get as smooth a sound as possible. And then [00:03:00] when you want to create an accent, you can, but starting from this linear, horizontal perspective rather than a keyboardistic, vertical one. That’s been something I’ve spent a lot of time working on over the last five, ten years. Evan Goldfine: What is a substitution or an adjustment on the harpsichord? Lillian Gordis: It just means that when you play the note, let’s say, you use your thumb. And then we don’t have a pedal, so you can’t pedal and then shift to the next note. So you have to use your hand as a pedal. So you might shift one and then shift to three without replaying the note so that you can move your hand. Or you might go one to five. Sometimes I shift not just in order to be able to reach, but because it rebalances your hand. So then the next note, you have more control over both the release of the previous note and the attack of the next one. So I shift and substitute a lot, probably almost an excessive amount. I also have relatively small hands, so if I want to control all of that, I need to — for example, I don’t write any fingerings in because it would be too complicated. Like I have [00:04:00] to really just memorize the hand patterns and positions of what I want to do. And then it doesn’t really matter which finger you end up on, as long as you’re in the right hand position. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Lillian Gordis: So yeah. Evan Goldfine: And when you talk about an attack — because you really can’t create a dynamic shift on the harpsichord — what does that look like when you enter the note? Lillian Gordis: It just means you can create kind of a pop when the plectrum hits the string, or plucks the string, I should say. And if you pluck a little bit faster, so with more attack, you’re really close to the keyboard, but you’re still going to have a little bit more bite that’s going to pop and come out within the texture. So a lot of what we do is: how much do you want? Very little attack. A lot of attack. And then how quiet can you make the end of the notes so that the next thing is either very quiet or louder? And I think making that next step to thinking about it with every voice — and I work through every voice by itself and figure out, okay, if I were one person playing this line, what do I want it to sound like? Then I add the next [00:05:00] voice or the combinations of voices. I’ll do like bass and alto, tenor, soprano, all these different things. And I also sing all the time when I’m practicing. And I found that singing when I’m practicing gives me a really good sense of projection. So like if I arrive in a new venue, I will sing through the rehearsal, which I think organizers sometimes find kind of weird. Evan Goldfine: You’re not going to do this during the show, right? Lillian Gordis: No, I promise. I promise. But it, you know, it sounds a little weird, but the human voice is so much more natural in so many ways. And so it gives me a really great sense of like, how long can this note go? How long should this note go — in a way that if I’m just listening to the harpsichord, I’m going to get kind of sucked into where that resonance point drops off. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. When you’re singing, are you singing normally the soprano line or is it any voice that seems to be the most resonant one in that moment when you’re rehearsing? Lillian Gordis: I am usually jumping around between the lines to sing the thing that I want to hear the most. When I’m practicing at home, I will try to sing through each part as I’m playing it. [00:06:00] Obviously that gets kind of difficult because some of it is not super singable, but I do my best. And then when I’m kind of at that final stage of just repeating this, when I get to a new space, I’m usually jumping around so that I’m singing the thing that I want to make sure I’m hearing. Evan Goldfine: I feel like we’re getting really technical here, but I find that it’s interesting in explaining how your approach comes in. So when you’re thinking about these lines, it’s really thinking about four independences with your fingers almost. If there’s a soprano alto tenor bass, you have to create the four phrases and lines within your ten fingers as they’re moving simultaneously. So how is that working between your brain and your fingers? Is it rote in the moment? Is it so memorized? But I feel like if it’s too memorized, then it could kind of suck the life out of the performance. How do you deal with that dichotomy? Lillian Gordis: So, I mean, yes, this is the big challenge, particularly in three and four part music, where it’s fully written through. Of course, you have music where the counterpoint is less [00:07:00] consistent or it comes in and out of focus more. Honestly, throughout most of the harpsichord repertoire, there’s still this kind of golden thread of counterpoint that you’re still feeling in all of it, regardless of exactly how it’s notated. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Lillian Gordis: For me, I think the danger as a keyboardist is that you can fall back on something that’s kind of vertical that you do memorize. It’s like, okay, I have two hands and I need to just — remember, kind of as I said earlier, kind of keyboard basically what I’m doing. And I think that’s where something becomes dangerous because you don’t actually remember exactly where your line is going. And that’s when things start to come apart or lose meaning. And so for me, the consistency of that has really come through and I don’t memorize my music. Like I play with the music — I would call it brain memorizing rather than muscle memorizing — the actual lines of music. So that’s one thing that’s really important: when I’m ready to take something out for concert, [00:08:00] I feel like I really am tracking in real time where those voices are going, which requires a huge amount of brain energy and listening. Like, you can’t turn off, you can’t be rote, you can’t — there’s no automatic mode that can come on because you’ll just lose track of what’s happening. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Lillian Gordis: That’s something I’ve also spent a lot of time trying to improve because it’s an amount of focus that’s hard, of course, to maintain. And the other thing I think that helps me in terms of the rote thing is that I try not to decide what I’m going to do in terms of interpretation ahead of time. Evan Goldfine: Hmm. Lillian Gordis: So I try to make sure — like I know where all the voices are going, I know where the important moments are, but I don’t decide how exactly that’s going to happen, which means that I need to know the music well enough to let it happen in the moment. And that’s something that has really changed my relationship with especially live performance, but also recording in a really positive way. Evan Goldfine: It does feel really fresh. This latest recording in particular, it feels like it was [00:09:00] played through, and I’m sure that there was some studio work afterwards, but I think that’s one of the reasons why it succeeds so much. I guess the corollary to all this is that it’s a conscious avoidance of a sort of grid-like and metronomic approach. Was that how you learned on the keyboard — on the harpsichord — how do you deal with, especially in something like Bach, with the intensity of the counterpoint? You can range anywhere from completely free to extremely grid-like and metronomic. How do you balance those two poles? Lillian Gordis: I mean, I guess I was lucky to the degree that I did start on the piano and one of the things I didn’t like about the piano was playing Bach on the piano. Not because I don’t like the — I actually like the piano, like I love listening to piano recordings. But I did kind of have this experience pretty early on, because I think my first Bach piece was a little prelude and I must have been maybe five. So I was pretty small. And it was this idea that like, you know, when you have the theme in your left hand, you play louder than your right hand. And it was this [00:10:00] kind of very systematic, hierarchical trade-off between the hands. And I didn’t necessarily understand how that served what appeared to me to be the texture of the music, even though I was very little. Had a lot of opinions about it, so I would argue with my piano teachers. And I didn’t like using the metronome, not necessarily because like I had a counting problem, but I didn’t understand how having something that’s reminding you where the weak beats in the bar was helpful. And so when I moved over to the harpsichord full-time, which was — I must have been nine — there’s just less of a culture of that. So that helped a lot. Like pretty early on I was learning about how to do rubato. I was kind of allowed to explore that pretty freely. And now at this point, I think other things have been helpful. Like I’m very, very interested in music that’s older than Bach — and older than I can even play — like all of this 14th, 15th, 16th century vocal music. I listen to that a lot. [00:11:00] And of course you hear the influence of that type of writing in a lot of the music that I want to be playing. And so thinking about how mensural notation works, how medieval music works, how Renaissance music works has really helped me kind of back away from any sense of — like the doomsday bar line, you know? I don’t think about bar lines very much. I try to think about overall phrase structure. But I mean, I’m working on some contemporary music right now and I will check the metronome if there’s something that’s polyrhythmic that I want to be sure I’m doing right, but I really never use the metronome. I haven’t used the metronome in like 25 years. Evan Goldfine: That’s great. Lillian Gordis: So. Evan Goldfine: So that older music — is it like Purcell and Byrd? Even older than that? Lillian Gordis: Yeah. I mean, like Machaut, Pérotin, Ockeghem, Lassus, Josquin, you know, all the really, really old stuff. Right. Taverner, and of course Byrd, Tallis, you know. Evan Goldfine: [00:12:00] Yeah. Lillian Gordis: But yeah. The great masters. Evan Goldfine: I mean, those are, by comparison, much less played today than Bach and the Baroque period and everything afterwards, of course. What are you still pulling out of that? What’s missing from the recorded repertoire of the older folks? Lillian Gordis: I mean, there are a couple ensembles that I think are doing really fantastic work in that repertoire, and that’s been very inspiring to me. There are pieces that some of those groups have not recorded yet that I’d love to hear, but in general, there are groups like Gesualdo Six or Graindelavoix, who are based in Belgium, who are not afraid to add ornamentation, to use singers who have really different voice timbres. I have no idea if this is historically authentic, and I honestly don’t care. Doesn’t matter. Evan Goldfine: Right. Lillian Gordis: No, I mean, I don’t play the harpsichord because it’s historically authentic. I play the harpsichord mostly because I like the way it feels — like I have a very intuitive, physical contact with the instrument. I like that feeling of being in contact with the string rather than on the piano. Always felt kind of distant from it. And [00:13:00] then, you know, I think there’s music that makes more sense to me on the harpsichord because it was written for it, but I don’t have any pretension to understanding or knowing what — we have no idea what anything sounded like. We’re making it up. Evan Goldfine: Sure, sure. Lillian Gordis: Which doesn’t bother me, but I think it’s important to recognize. Evan Goldfine: One of the reasons I love playing the classical guitar is that you feel the resonance all around your body. I’ve never played a harpsichord. Do you feel the instrument resonating back in your fingers at all? Lillian Gordis: Not as much as the guitar. I mean, I don’t play guitar well, but I’ve, you know, dabbled a little bit. It’s not quite that level of contact, but you do really have this feeling of — when you pluck the string and the jack goes down, first of all, you have that feeling of plucking. And there’s only one part of the key that plucks effectively. So you have to find the plucking point. And that’s an important thing. And it’s not always exactly in the same place on every instrument. Evan Goldfine: Oh no. Lillian Gordis: They’re all different. There are no two harpsichords that are alike. Evan Goldfine: So you go to a new venue, [00:14:00] you have to really relearn the instrument in a way that’s not similar to pianists. I mean, pianists have to adjust for the timbre of an instrument and the color of an instrument — like sometimes it’s pretty bright or dull in certain areas. But with the harpsichord, you’re suggesting that if you hit the center of the key, you might miss the center of the plucking mechanism. Lillian Gordis: Yeah. But I mean also they don’t all have the same range, so some have fewer keys. Like the biggest harpsichord basically has 63 keys. So some of them have like 58, some have two keyboards — double manual — some don’t. The key sizes, like the width of the key, are not the same. Evan Goldfine: Oh, no. Lillian Gordis: Nor standardized. The length is not standardized. The shape of the keys and the sharps is not standardized. So you’re kind of starting over every time. Evan Goldfine: But you know, you travel to new venues and you could find yourself fairly vulnerable. Like, are you more prone to honking a note because the keys are a little more narrow? Lillian Gordis: Yeah. Or in my [00:15:00] case, usually if they’re bigger because of the small hands. Evan Goldfine: Right, right. Lillian Gordis: But yes, I mean, that’s just part of the game. And I think as you gain more experience performing, you find ways to minimize the impact of that or to work with it, and try to turn it into a positive. But I mean, sometimes you just end up with an instrument that doesn’t work and there’s not that much you can do about it. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. So I’d love to pivot and talk a little bit about Bach and your interpretations. So it sounds like you might have gotten the Bach bug when you turned back to the harpsichord when you were young and moving away from the piano Bach. Were there recordings that you were listening to on harpsichord at that age that were important to you? Or were you learning the repertoire and then coming to the recordings after that? Lillian Gordis: So we, in my family, we had some early music recordings, but I wasn’t all that conscious of them. I don’t think I really knew which recording was which. In retrospect I realized that we had some [00:16:00] recordings on historical instruments. For example, we went to concerts at the Berkeley festival that I’m playing at in whatever ten days. I remember hearing Il Giardino Armonico do all the Brandenburgs, and I think I was six, so this was something that was in my sound world. I didn’t come to the harpsichord through recordings. So I came to the harpsichord really because my first piano teacher had one and I got to try it and I liked it, but I was too little at that point. Like nobody wanted to teach a five-year-old the harpsichord. We couldn’t rent an instrument, so I, you know, I stayed a little bit in touch with the instrument, so to speak. I did the San Francisco Early Music Society Discovery Workshop a couple summers, and it was around, but I wasn’t getting to play one. I guess when — yeah, when I was about nine, I kind of said to my parents, like, I’ve bounced around to different piano teachers and I’m running into the same types of issues. I feel frustrated. I don’t want to do this anymore. And there were other things that I was interested in. I don’t know if I considered them professionally. But, you know, there was kind of this [00:17:00] tipping point where it could have gone either way. And they were like, well, let’s give the harpsichord one last shot. And if it doesn’t work out, you can take a break for a while. Because I had been playing — by that point I started the piano when I was three, so it had already been a while. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Lillian Gordis: We got lucky — we managed to find a great teacher in San Francisco named Kathy Perl, and she had an instrument to rent and everything just kind of aligned at the right moment. But it’s kind of interesting because I, for the first number of years, had no awareness that there was a harpsichord community outside of the Bay Area. So there’d be concerts that I would go to. My teacher had some recordings, some of the other harpsichordists had recordings, but I didn’t realize there was a whole big world out there. And it actually wasn’t till I was — I think I was 12 or 13 — and my parents got me the scores for the Well-Tempered Clavier for my birthday. And then I was looking for a recording, because I couldn’t realistically sight read all of that. I mean, I tried, but I wanted to hear it. And I went to The Musical Offering in Berkeley, Joseph Spencer’s shop, which had a big impact [00:18:00] on early music in the Bay Area in general, because he stocked tons of international recordings. He was very involved with the Berkeley Festival. So we went there to look for a recording, and I happened upon Pierre Hantaï’s Well-Tempered Clavier Book One. Evan Goldfine: Wow. Lillian Gordis: I had vaguely heard of him because my teacher at the time had been at the Bruges competition with him, but I didn’t really know what any of that meant. I just was like, hmm, maybe this will be interesting. So I grabbed it. And that was really life-changing, and it was expensive. My mom was like, are you really going to listen to this? I was like, well, give me a shot. So I popped it into the CD player and I had never heard anything like that in terms of instrument playing, recording quality, like everything. Evan Goldfine: It’s an extraordinary album. Lillian Gordis: Yeah, it really is. And that was life-changing for me. It’s just a fantastic recording. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. So you ended up studying with him? Lillian Gordis: Yeah. Evan Goldfine: Not too far from that moment. Lillian Gordis: No. Evan Goldfine: What was it like studying under him? [00:19:00] What did he impart to you that your other teachers couldn’t? Lillian Gordis: I think the thing that’s interesting about Pierre is that he’s very anti-authoritarian and he’s almost anti-pedagogical. And so even studying with him was a very informal thing. Like he doesn’t — there was a period of time where he had students, but by the time I came along, he didn’t really have any students anymore. He did not have a private studio, and he was kind enough to give me a couple initial lessons, but he didn’t promise anything. And then when I ended up moving to France, I ended up working with him — but it wasn’t all that formal, even though I ended up working with him for like three years. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Lillian Gordis: I would just go and have these really long lessons — like, you know, all day long — and I would basically call him when I knew I had enough music to play. But I knew the expectation was to arrive with basically a program’s worth of music. Evan Goldfine: Wow. Lillian Gordis: There wasn’t a lot of talking. He would play a lot. And I mean, that’s — I learned well by imitation, so that worked well for me, but I never had the impression that I needed to [00:20:00] be doing what he was doing. I mean, he’s a great musician. And so at that age, of course, I wanted to imitate and to copy. But it was in a way very unstructured. And I appreciated the sense of responsibility that that gave me. It was on me to do the work. It was on me to push harder. It was on me to figure out how to make the instrument do everything. And I value that. Evan Goldfine: That’s great. And so were you just playing through the Well-Tempered Clavier? What kind of work were you studying at that age? Lillian Gordis: I mean, the very first lesson, I must have been 14 because he came to the Bay Area with Jordi Savall and gave me a lesson. I mean, we covered a lot of stuff. I remember working on the sixth Partita, the second English Suite, Preludes and Fugues, Scarlatti Sonatas, Frescobaldi toccatas — I mean, honestly, kind of an overview of most of the repertoire. Between — I mean I had a couple lessons in 2007 and I didn’t live in Europe yet. And then from 2009 to about 2013, you know, I’d say we [00:21:00] didn’t cover everything, but we kind of covered the big building blocks. And I think the most important thing was honestly not the repertoire. It was: how do you build yourself a toolbox so that you can apply that to whatever you want to be working on. Evan Goldfine: And what you have been working on has been really interesting collections of Bach’s works. And you know, I’ve noticed that in both of the Bach albums that you recorded — the Well-Tempered Clavier selections — you’ve recorded only from the second book. And I’d say for most fans, they’re probably listening to the first book maybe 75, 80% of the time. And the second is sort of a relic. How do you think about that? I mean, was that a conscious choice, playing some of the lesser known pieces? Lillian Gordis: Yeah, I mean, I think there were a couple things. First of all, I feel like because this recording by Pierre Hantaï had such a big impact on me at such an important age — being in my early teens — I listened to the album a lot and then I also played through Book One a [00:22:00] lot, and probably more than Book Two. And there were more Preludes and Fugues that I worked on from Book One as a teenager. I spent a number of years as a teenager without a teacher, because I kind of got to the end of the road with my first teacher, and then there wasn’t somebody else living nearby that I immediately wanted to work with. And because I was a little bit stubborn, I was like, I’d rather work on my own than go to a lesson every week and feel like I’m not getting where I want to be going. And so there’s a whole bunch of music that I kind of worked on too much and head-banged with and felt frustrated by. The sixth Partita is actually one of those pieces, and I’ve kind of come around now. But I think with Book One, it was just something I’m not ready to come back to. Whereas Book Two, in a way, because it’s more complicated and the pieces are more standalone, I didn’t spend as much time with it as a teenager. And so I feel like, yeah, there are these pieces — some of them are very difficult and strange and they get ignored. Like people don’t necessarily want to deal with them, for a lot of [00:23:00] reasons. And yeah, I really wanted to get into those for what each one of them is worth, rather than doing — I don’t really want to do the whole book. I mean, who knows, maybe when I’m 55 I’ll be like, I’m going to do the whole Well-Tempered Clavier Book Two. I have no idea. But for now, I wanted to pick out these pieces that otherwise kind of get lost in the bigger picture. Evan Goldfine: They’re a little less tuneful than the first book. Lillian Gordis: Yes. Evan Goldfine: And I think that’s why — for people who love Bach, it’s not just the counterpoint. I think he’s an underrated melody writer, and there are such powerful, beautiful tunes throughout his catalog, especially in the first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier, and it’s underpinned by this incredible counterpoint, which I just find — that’s the best. It’s the brain and the heart together. Lillian Gordis: Mm-hmm. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. So I think that’s what resonates. But I’ve been enjoying digging into some of your recordings of the second book — I’d love to hear more of that as well. Yeah. Scarlatti is another artist who you’ve [00:24:00] recorded. Scarlatti is someone who’s been rising in my esteem as I’ve been listening more to his music over the years. Tell me what’s important about Scarlatti to you. Lillian Gordis: So, I mean, the funny thing about the Scarlatti thing is I played a ton of Scarlatti, like ten-ish years ago. I had a program, I was doing a lot in concert, then I recorded the CD. And then I just completely lost interest and I have no idea why. I was chatting with my producer the other evening and we were talking about recording projects, and he was like, do you think you’ll circle back to Scarlatti at some point? I was like, I’m sure I will, but I can’t explain why. But I mean, what I really like about Scarlatti is that it’s not Baroque music at all. For me, it’s like Impressionist music. It’s very visual. Even the way it looks on the page, it’s incredibly visual and you have these very rapid timbre and mood changes that you don’t really get in more traditional Baroque forms. And it’s just really refreshing and I found that it was a great playground to figure out what you could do [00:25:00] with the instrument. And especially in my early-to-mid twenties, I just was like, okay — sometimes you can feel like there are so many rules that you’re supposed to be listening to about Baroque forms that it can almost get in the way of your development and your relationship with the instrument. What I loved about Scarlatti is we don’t know — I mean, he didn’t leave us any information about his music. And so for me it was like this clean slate to figure out: what can I do with overholding? What can I do with attack? What can I do with silence? And that’s what I really love about that music. Evan Goldfine: Yeah, it’s a fun album and there’s been a lot of great recordings on piano of late as well. Lucas Debargue — Lillian Gordis: Debargue. Yeah. Evan Goldfine: Yeah — recorded about 50 of them on a big album and it’s — yeah, they’re just great. So I’d love to talk about some recordings that are important to you, both Bach and otherwise. Do you listen to non-classical music at all, or is it mostly — a little bit. A little bit. So what are important records for you in the early days? We know we heard about Pierre Hantaï’s Well-Tempered [00:26:00] Clavier Book One. What are other important records for you, both from your origin time and into now, so I can link all of those for our listeners? Lillian Gordis: Yeah, for sure. I mean, so I would say I think that Pierre’s work on Scarlatti made a huge impact on me. Of course. Yes. Especially the 1, 2, 3 volumes — there are so many of them, but I remember the 1, 2, 3 volumes. And that was just about explosivity — like, oh, the harpsichord can be a very explosive instrument. Yeah. There were also — I mean now they feel very dated, but I got to know the cantatas through the Leonhardt-Harnoncourt complete set. I checked them out of the library and I’m still very kind of attached to the work that they were doing, even though there are all these problems. Evan Goldfine: They’re not great. Lillian Gordis: No. Evan Goldfine: Those are very problematic recordings. Like the boy sopranos, there’s a lot of off-pitch singing. Lillian Gordis: Yeah. Evan Goldfine: The orchestras often — a lot of it I can see as sort of charming in certain ways, and novel, but I never connected to those records. Also, you know, I had the benefit of there being seven other complete [00:27:00] recordings to listen to right after them. But you still have a connection. Lillian Gordis: Yeah, I still have a connection to that. And when I’m talking to my students, sometimes I’ll pull them up and they’ll be like, why are you listening to this? And I’m like, well, but listen to this thing, because this thing is part of our story and our history. I think generational connections in the early music world are so important. Kind of like where you’re coming from, who you’re going to. And so I think, you know, I connected very strongly with this whole kind of Dutch school thing, even though I would absolutely never do that music that way myself. I think particularly the Saint Matthew recording that Leonhardt did with La Petite Bande, which is a little bit later — and so I think the playing and the singing overall are more successful. That, for example, was recorded in the church in the Netherlands where I record. And where Pierre’s done a lot of recordings, Leonhardt did a lot of solo recordings. And you go and listen to the E major aria in the St. Matthew and you — I hear the colors of that church. There’s just a very strong kind of nostalgia connection to that whole sound world. Like on a completely different note, I also loved a lot of Jordi Savall’s recordings — that was [00:28:00] very important for me. I remember the Purcell Fantasia recording. His recordings of some of the dance suites, excerpted from Rameau and other French composers. The ensemble Le Poème Harmonique — a lot of their early recordings, like they have a set of Airs de Cour that was really important. Things that kind of brought me into this bigger sound world. I remember a lot of those. And then there were also pianists. I listened to Richter. I listened to some of the early pianists — Hofmann and company. I don’t have a specific recording in mind, but that had a big impact on me. Just the amount of rubato that they did and the desyncing between the hands. I found that really interesting. When I was a kid, another recording that made a big impact was the Harnoncourt Beethoven recordings, the symphonies. I had never heard Beethoven sound that way. Evan Goldfine: Right. Lillian Gordis: I think we had Levin doing the Beethoven piano concerto with Gardiner. Just those — [00:29:00] that made a big impact on me. Those records. Evan Goldfine: Yes. Lillian Gordis: Those. Evan Goldfine: It sounds like there was a lot of that music playing in your household when you were a kid. Were your parents musicians or did they just love the music? Lillian Gordis: No, they’re just music lovers. And it’s funny — now I ask them, why did you have those recordings? They’re like, oh, I don’t know. My parents are funny that way, but they had good recordings. We had Andras Schiff — I remember the Andras Schiff Book Two actually. Evan Goldfine: Okay. Lillian Gordis: I must have heard that when I was like four. Yeah, because I remember that. And then as time went by — I mean, more recently there have been other recordings that have made a big impact on me. For example, the Bernstein Mahler symphonies. Yes. I didn’t know Mahler because once I got into the early music thing, for a long time I was only listening to that. And now, you know, recently like the Barenboim recording of the Brahms Symphonies with the Staatskapelle. That’s amazing. Bruckner, you know, all these huge symphonic forms that are so far from what I do — like I really enjoy that. Ravel piano — amazing. Evan Goldfine: And who on the Ravel piano? Lillian Gordis: Well, I actually really liked [00:30:00] what Lucas Debargue did with Gaspard de la Nuit, for example. Evan Goldfine: It’s a really good album. Lillian Gordis: Yeah, it’s a great album. I like most of Piotr Anderszewski’s recordings. I really enjoy Alexander Kanterow. Yeah. I mean, that’s sort of what comes to mind immediately — Kanterow playing Brahms. That’s great. Yeah. I felt like I finally understood Brahms, you know? Evan Goldfine: I saw him do Brahms’s adaptation of the Chaconne for the left hand at Carnegie Hall a couple years ago. It was really good. Lillian Gordis: I’ve only had a chance to see him play once, but yeah. That was a very inspiring relationship to the hall and the sound. I could kind of relate to what was going on there. Evan Goldfine: We haven’t talked about Glenn Gould, who’s a little bit off to the side of all of this. Did your parents have a record of him, and did that change your impression of the keyboard at all? And Bach as well? Lillian Gordis: Funnily enough, we didn’t have any Gould recordings, and I remember when I was working on the inventions, I was again maybe six or seven, and I think we checked out a recording from the library because my parents are big library people, so we were always at the library. I turned it on and I was like, eh. [00:31:00] And that’s always been my reaction to Gould. I don’t hate it. I just don’t connect with it. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Lillian Gordis: And I don’t really know why. Evan Goldfine: It’s been puzzling to me that he is so eccentric. I thought that was the way to play Bach — that was how I learned the music initially. That was my entry and I liked the music and I thought that the playing was unusual, but it’s just bizarre to me that that’s like the standard recording that a lot of people will enter with. This has been great. Anything else come to mind that you wanted to talk about regarding your Bach journey? What’s coming next? What do you want to record? Is it the Goldbergs? Will there be more Bach and what particular pieces are you really interested in taking into more? Lillian Gordis: So there’ll definitely be more Bach. I’m taking a little break recording-wise from that because my next recording, I’m doing 16th century English music and a little bit of contemporary music that I commissioned. So I want to kind of go in another direction, which kind of relates back to what I was saying about the recordings I’ve listened to most recently — all of this vocal polyphony. And so I want to see what I can do with that with 16th century English rep. [00:32:00] And then with Bach, I was literally having this conversation like two nights ago with my producer and I definitely want to get to the rest of the Partitas. I don’t know in exactly what order or when, but those are all pieces that are just incredible on their own. I think at some point, Goldbergs. I mean, I worked on them a lot. I performed them a lot — something like not quite ten years ago — and then I kind of got the sense I didn’t have something to say and put them aside. Evan Goldfine: I put you in the post that I had of you on my blog — I had it after Yunchan Lim’s recordings. Yeah. Which I think fell really flat for me. I didn’t think he had enough to say. I think he’s got a lot of chops, but I didn’t think he had anything else artistic to say about that. And there are something like 500 Goldberg recordings available now, and you can keep getting more out of them, but you really — I think probably two thirds of them are not worth listening to. Lillian Gordis: Yeah. I think with the Goldbergs, it’s like people are attracted to it because it’s a long piece where you don’t have to construct a program narrative to some [00:33:00] degree. Not to — I’m not dissing the Goldbergs. I love the Goldbergs, but I do think there’s something attractive about that and that’s not enough. I learned them pretty early on. I mean, I was in my late teens and the first time I performed them I think I was 20 or 21. And that was fun. But I don’t want to record them and I don’t want to record anything until I have that feeling that I have something to say. So in response to your question there — I’m really interested in the Art of Fugue, but I have not figured that out at all. Like, I want Art of Fugue on the harpsichord to sound like Art of Fugue does with a consort, like on the Savall recording — that’s so trippy. Yeah, I love that. But I have to figure out how to make my fingers sound like viols and cornetti and all of that. And I haven’t gotten there. Evan Goldfine: My experience with that, live — I heard Daniil Trifonov play that at Lincoln Center. It was like a week before quarantine in 2020 and there were people coughing in the audience — there were always people coughing in the audience — and I was [00:34:00] already kind of like, this is not good. And it was a very intense moment and he’s such an intense performer and he just played the whole thing. He took an intermission to breathe a little bit. And then he went through the whole thing and then played an arrangement of Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring as an encore and then left. And I think he took a nap. It was very, very intense. But yeah — I’ve never heard it on harpsichord. I’ve never listened to a recording on harpsichord. Are there many? Lillian Gordis: Yeah, I mean, there’s a decent number. It’s not as popular as a lot of other pieces, but it’s something that I would like to figure out at some point down the road. And there are other pieces that I would like to spend more time with. I think there are pieces like the toccatas — I played the toccatas when I was a kid. I work very cyclically and I kind of let things speak to me. So when I feel that pull towards something, I’m like, okay, now is the time. But I try not to force it. Evan Goldfine: And so you’ll come up to — so a toccata is something like, okay, this could be the center of the next project and you’ll build around it. Lillian Gordis: Yeah. Exactly. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Yeah. Lillian Gordis: I think you’ll definitely get the rest of the Partitas in the next couple years and I’ll probably [00:35:00] continue to pair them. I like making these kind of architectural programs. I find that interesting. I like constructing a recording — figuring out how to give it some kind of overall sense, but also respect the fact that people may not listen to it all the way through. I know that especially with streaming, people don’t. And so constructing something where people can listen to 20 minutes and they may turn it off and they haven’t lost the whole point of the recording. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Evan Goldfine: Is it hard to record these things? Like to get the — how do I phrase this? Is it hard to convince people to record these another time? Lillian Gordis: I’ve been lucky. The first label I was with — the label was not very involved in the production aspect. They were kind of just housing the recording, but I was in charge of a lot of the production. So I made the first Scarlatti recording, and then I was actually going to record English music. And we had a problem with the space. There was too much humidity, so the harpsichord wouldn’t stay in tune, so we threw that out. Evan Goldfine: Oh no. Lillian Gordis: This happens. So after that I was kind of at a loss actually. And it was early 2020. Because I [00:36:00] was locked at home, I was spending a lot more time playing Bach. Like I’d always played Bach, but I hadn’t necessarily had time to just spend with these really big pieces. And then I was like, you know what? I want to record the fifth English Suite, I want to do the fourth Partita, I want to do this B-flat minor Prelude and Fugue. And then it sort of started to come together and the label was like, that’s fine if you want to do that — like, they didn’t really care. And I never had any anxiety about it personally. Like I figure a recording is a moment in time. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Lillian Gordis: And I may rerecord things, but I have to feel like I have something to say. But I don’t think of it in terms of what age or what stage in my progression I am. I just try to react to my instinct about that. And then now I’m with a different label and that producer came on board because of the last Bach album — he just loved that album. So we’ve had some conversations back and forth, but he basically is like, you can record whatever you want, which is awesome. Amazing freedom. I’m grateful for that. Yeah. Evan Goldfine: That’s [00:37:00] awesome. Well, congratulations on that. We’re looking forward to listening to whatever’s coming next, including this new English album. Lillian’s new album is JS Bach, with a collection of Partitas and excerpts from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book Two. The French art label. It’s available on all streaming. I’ll have it linked in the show notes. Lillian, thank you for joining us today. Go see Lillian in concert. It’s going to be great. Lillian Gordis: Thank you so much for having me. It’s a pleasure. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit yearofbach.substack.com [https://yearofbach.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Bach’s Transformations, with Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya

In this episode of A Year of Bach, Evan talks with keyboardist Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya about her new harpsichord album Transformations, which explores Bach’s adaptations of works by composers including Marcello and Vivaldi. The conversation ranges from Bach as arranger to the expressive possibilities of the harpsichord, the freedom and discipline of interpretation, tempo choices, practice, and the influence of pianists like Sviatoslav Richter, Glenn Gould, and Alfred Cortot. Links worth clicking on: * Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya’s website [https://www.alexandranepomnyashchaya.com/] * Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya, J. S. Bach: Transformations: Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/us/album/j-s-bach-transformations/1860160272] / Spotify artist page [https://open.spotify.com/artist/3PD4r34dwk5fmbCvnWPxod] * Lillian Gordis, J. S. Bach: Partita No. 6, English Suite & Preludes and Fugues: Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/us/album/j-s-bach-partita-no-6-english-suite-preludes-and-fugues/1844680622] / Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/5WBgzQZjWKO6rbOpaZIc1Y] * Alfred Cortot: Bach-Cortot, Arioso from Keyboard Concerto in F minor, BWV 1056, Second Movement [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edv4SapuGlQ] * Sviatoslav Richter, Richter The Master - Bach: Apple Music [https://classical.music.apple.com/us/album/1452968858] / Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/6i7UwmP0QC3Z4oINhlM4Jw] Transcript: Evan Goldfine: Hello and welcome to the podcast, a Year of Bach. My name is Evan Goldfine, and today I am welcoming Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya. Alexandra’s a Russian born keyboardist, now based in Amsterdam. In early 2026, she released an excellent album of Bach on the harpsichord. It’s called Transformations, and it was released on the Linn Label and it features Bach’s adaptations of other composers’ works, including Marcelo and Vivaldi. Alexandra’s playing through on this album is exciting throughout. There’s a constant sense of being pulled forward along with the music, a nice sense of pace. So today we’ll talk to Alexandra about her thoughts on Bach as arranger and the different virtues of harpsichord and piano, when playing Bach, and how to choose the right tempi when, the scores don’t tell you what to play. So Alexandra, welcome to the podcast. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Thank you for having me here. It’s a great opportunity and chance to speak again about Johan Sebastian Bach yeah, we get to play a lot, but, we should speak about his, we gotta Evan Goldfine: talk about, Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: yes, absolutely. Evan Goldfine: So all keyboards are introduced to Bach in their early studies. Were you drawn to his music in the very beginning? Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Well, I started to play piano when I was four and a half. And I actually carried on until I was 16, only with piano playing and then when I was 16, I started to play harpsichord and carried on playing Bach on piano and harpsichord too. And then it was joined by organ and Clavichord as well. I think the music of Bach always comes with me. And it’s great to have it along. Evan Goldfine: What’s drawing you to perform Bach on the piano versus the harpsichord? I mean, it’s a choice that you have. There’s so many beautiful recordings on both instruments. But you chose to record this on harpsichord, what drew you particularly? Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Well, I personally think that music by Bach can and actually should be played on any musical instrument. it’s, you know, the one famous Russian pianist Sviatoslav Richter, the greatest, he’s the greatest Yes. In one of his interviews. so he said that Music of Bach is like a fresh spring water that cleans and refreshes our ears. And I think this is very, very right sentence Yes. To say about we all need music of Bach. And as I grew up, listening to the recordings, of Bach mostly played on piano, so I was exposed only to piano, until I became 16. And among those recordings were for the greatest Sviatoslav Richter, as well as Maria Yudina, the quite important pianist she studied around the same time as Shostakovich. And of course, Glenn Gould was a big hero, for all of the pianists. and, still he’s a absolutely genius. And then of course you can agree or disagree with his interpretations. But, it’s, it’s absolutely incredible the ability, how he hears music, how he hears all the complex polyphony, which Bach writes. So then, coming back to the point, that’s until my 16th, I was only exposed to piano and then I started with harpsichord. And that of course opened completely different path, for me. talking about the harpsichord, it’s. Quite a challenging instrument to make it sound expressive. Evan Goldfine: Yes. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: I think due to the mechanic of the instrument, which is, quite, unexpressive because, it you, so the, the harpsichord? Yeah. So it’s a keyboard instrument, which makes sound by plucking the strings. So you basically push the key down and the string is being plucked and it doesn’t matter how hard or how soft you push the key, that will not affect the sound, which means it’s theoretically, it always comes at the same, dynamic and at the same time, we know from Bach that his main demand on playing harpsichord was that it has to be a very singing instrument. So the way of playing has to be very singing and so this is quite challenging for when you face a harpsichord. as I mentioned, for example, the clavichord, which was around the time, and it was Bach’s favorite instrument, so he had it in his room and he practiced on it every day, and he made his sons practice on it as well, and they all loved it because of completely different nature of the instrument. That’s a very expressive instrument. Yeah. So the clavichord, so It’s a like a small, very, very quiet version of piano. So you press a hits the string and it stays there until you press the key, which means you can not only do dynamic on the instrument, but you also can affect the dynamic while you are on the key. So it’s the only keyboard instrument which you can make vibrato on. That is very, very specific. Yes. Of course, it’s not a concert, instrument, but, just with this knowledge of the expressivity in dynamic. So we, I think we have to really try and transform it into. in the harpsichord as well. And so with the harpsichord, of course, we havedifferent tools, how we can make the, using expressive not only by using different registrations on manuals. This is one of the tools, but not the main one. I think that, Evan Goldfine: So if you can’t freely. create any kind of dynamic range. Does it make you play more with rhythm and placement of the notes? Does that become a more important part of your expression? Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: so I think the length of the notes is extremely important. So for example, where we have to play a polyphony even if it’s only two voices. So we have to make a difference between the sound in one voice comparable to another one. And so we manipulate it with the lengths of the notes and also with the timing, which is crucial and very, very important but I personally believe so that when I play harpsichord, I have to imagine dynamic much stronger and much more precise than when if I would play it on the piano because there is nothing, nowhere to hide. So. While playing harpsichord or with a piano playing, we can hide behind the beautiful sound behind the pedal. So there are, Evan Goldfine: so you can change the dynamic range and that means that the note placement may be less emphasized or, whether you get a run exactly right because you, if you’re pedaling and all these notes are holding together. You have this beautiful cordal shape Exactly. That’s coming around. And with the harpsichord it’s just stark. and exactly. You only have one choice. Yeah. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Yes, And so we have to use lots of over legato, which is, very important to make the sound as long as we can, and to make this difference with the lengths of the notes as well as timing. Also to know exactly what is the phrasing, what we want to say, and so what is the dynamic? And I think that harpsichord, you know, as a still a live instrument. So it sort of listens to your imagination a lot. ‘cause when I play, so if I imagine dynamic, even if I don’t do anything like theoretically, but I feel that the instrument reacts on this and somehow follows that line, which is great. Evan Goldfine: I’ve noticed that sometimes , harpsichordists will, as opposed to piano maybe, roll the notes a little more on chord so it creates a little more length. So, they’re not hit exactly the same time. Is that a strategy that you use when you’re thinking about harpsichord versus piano? Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Yeah, so I think you can totally use it on the piano too. Mm-hmm. It is, and we know that they use it a lot like also in the 19th century. Yeah. So this, it’s a music of Beethoven, so it’s totally allowed and appreciated. It’s just, you know, in the 20th century, everything became quite strict. And so people started to be afraid to play what’s not exactly written in the music. Actually the way the further back we go, the freer. It was. Yeah. Evan Goldfine: I guess with Gould, again, now we’re free again to do whatever we want. was he an inspiration? I know I don’t hear a lot of Gould in your playing, butfor better or worse. Right. You know, he was his own thing. And that’s great that your own Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Yes. Evan Goldfine: So did that kind of freedom that he showed allow, do you think that we’re all kind of children of Glen for that freedom that he was creating? Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: In a way yes, but I think when the harpsichord came back, and with the Leonhardt generation, it was quite strict still. and so it’s now that I feel that, it’s releasing a game and that people play both piano and harpsichord, and that is a great thing, because it was some time when the musicians were quite strict, so we only play harpsichord in only certain way. So everything round would be like not allowed or, Not appreciated. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: I think now we, we, because the generation of young players, it’s, it’s good to see that people really, really Become more free. I, Evan Goldfine: I just heard Lillian Gordis in concert. I don’t know if you’ve heard her albums Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: No. No. No, Evan Goldfine: she’s a young harpsicordist, with a new album from last year. Excellent stuff. and Pierre Hantai, I think you studied with, is that right? Yes. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Had the master classes. Evan Goldfine: I loved his, book, one of the Well-Tempered Klavier. I think it’s one of the more important recordings of that piece. and just really it turned me onto the harpsichord is like, wow, this is something that can, because I guess I started with Gould like everybody else with some of those albums. Evan Goldfine: Yep. Evan Goldfine: And Richter and, and the other geniuses who have created like a, a template in my mind about how those things should sound. Evan Goldfine: yeah. Evan Goldfine: now it sounds great on the harpsichord too. When you were thinking about creating some of your, interpretations of these. Are you hearing the recordings that you know, well, do you study the recordings? Are you just looking at the score and how does it come from you into the music? I think it’s, there’s something really key about it and I can’t ever put my finger on it. So how do you approach your music making? Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Yeah, well, of course I listen to the recordings. I love listening and to compare them as well, I do it before I get to the, too far with the pieces myself So when I’m at the moment, of exploring it myself, I try to really focus on what I want to say and, how do I see this? So what is the right choice? it’s quite a long process for me. it’s, I must say it’s never easy. I struggle a lot. Like there always musical ideas and you know, is it right tempo or is it too fast or too slow? And then I change lots of things. it’s a long process for me, which I love because I love practice, I must admit. So I feel really that I rest with my soul when I practice. It’s a kind of meditation for me Evan Goldfine: So when you’re, you come up with your, you play it, and then you’re growing along with it, and the tempi can change or the dynamics can change, or your thoughts about it can change. Is that from repetition and do you feel like you’re understanding the music better? Is it, integrating with other songs that you want to have on the album? how are those things developing over time as you’re iterating your interpretation? Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Yeah, it’s, it’s the more I practice the, I think the deeper I understand and also deeper I listen this music, to this pieces. And then some ideas come and then I try things as well. so that’s, it’s always good to have this time, before the recording. So that you, you have enough time to actually grow and still, I must admit, you record something and then you come back to the program like I do now, have to play it in a month in Spain with the whole recital. And then I feel, oh, I should have played it differently. You know? And this is, I think it’s totally normal. Evan Goldfine: And will you play it the new way at the concert or are you gonna go back to your old way? Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: No, no. I think you can’t go to the old way. There’s not such thing. I think it’s always develops, which is great because it’s, it’s, there is no like, that’s a great part of being musician We never stop. We never stop learning. We always go forward. Yeah. I think that’s very special in our profession. Evan Goldfine: One of the pieces I really liked on the album is a very short piece. It’s BWV 9 9 9. It’s a short arpeggiated study in C minor. I played that on guitar originally in A minor, ‘cause c minor on the guitaris no fun. but in A minor it’s, you can play it. and I started to learn on the piano as well. And when I’ve played it. I really go slow and I milk it for the drama, like the big heavy notes on the bottom. And like we’re going, it’s this arpeggiated study. It’s so pretty. Like, it’s almost like the Arpeggiated C major prelude from the first, Well-tempered Klavier, like the very famous one. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Yep. Yep. Evan Goldfine: your interpretation here is very fast and wonderful. Evan Goldfine: and you know, I’ve listened to a lot of other recordings of that piece before. The keyboardist, Walter Gieseking, King, I think is his,how you pronounce it. Yes, yes. He also plays it extremely quickly. Okay. And the fastest that I’ve heard it. but yours is also very, very fast. So I mean, can you hear it as like this really languid lush piece with like you really enjoying all the, all the arpeggios also, or, and, but you chose to, to move it quickly, which also works, but it’s a very different kind of feel. I’d love to hear how you came to that interpretation. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Well, for the tempo. So it’s, I think the first comes as a character for me. So I have to look which character I want to deliver so the tonality is a very important thing for me because I hear, I actually remember all the music, but with the tonalities, I never remember numbers, but I know exactly which keys it did. So it’s just something because, probably because I have an absolute pitch and I very much connect music with that. So every key means something for me and for my ears. so the C minor, so it’s just, I see it as quite a, stormy and fiery little piece. Evan Goldfine: For Beethoven too. C minor, right? Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Yes, exactly. And also the important thing, I think the harmonies, how quickly harmonies change. And if you notice that in this small prelude. The harmony change either, every bar or every second bar. So, which is quite a long time for the harmony. So that’s also helps me to understand, okay, I want to see line within the harmony. I don’t want it to be stuck on the C Minor for two bars without,dynamic. So, because you’re on harpsichord going back to that onco. Yes. So I need to see this dynamic development and with within, and the harmonies are very, very important. for everything. Evan Goldfine: There’s like one note towards the end that changes everything in that piece. Like, it, it moves you from, from, minor into this major key. And he kind of hints at it. I love this about Bach. He’ll sometimes hint at it that it might be coming and then he brings you there and he changes the harmony. And then suddenly You find yourself in the new key altogether. in this program that you created, there’s a lot of pieces of Bach, an arranger, and he’s arranging other composer’s works for keyboard and I think about that a lot as him studying. Right. And, and he’s presenting that to us, but he’s also, there’s, there’s a craft to what he’s doing too. When, when you were looking and, and learning these pieces, did you also refer to the originals? did you study those at all? Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Yeah. Well, just to say about the. Arrangement world. So this Bach, he’s like Handel who was great recycler of the material. Evan Goldfine: Mm-hmm. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: And Handel was very often accused of stealing the music from others. Yeah. So we know that, but actually it’s just very important to say that using the, or borrowing the material from other composers. We can see it as a tribute, so as appreciation of other composers. And, of course Bach is far more adventurous and creative than I think nearly every composer from his time. so those two concertos, which I play under the city, so the arrangement of the violin Vivaldi concerto and the famous oboe concerto by Marcello.I know the original pieces, I listen to them of course. that is very important for me as well to to hear what’s happening in the original version. And then once I know, I open the music of Bach and then the surprise comes because the music sounds louder and more amplified in Bach’s version, then comparable to the orchestra version. And that’s a paradox because you play just a harpsichord, but it sounds louder, more intense, There’s so much going on things I don’t think Vivaldi and Marcello would ever imagine. Those concertos sound that full. Evan Goldfine: do you think that that’s the arrangement of the notes that he has, like the way that the notes are stacked up and are there different harmonies? how do you think that he achieves that? Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: So he’s, he’s following the harmonies quite, quite strictly, I think. But he adds so many extra lines, so many, intensive chromatic lines, and the texture becomes so full. it’s, it’s never just the translations of the originals. So he, changes the material into something glorious new. even he does it with his own pieces. We know from his, passions. Yeah. With Matthew and John’s passions whenever, because he performed that not once. And by performing them second time, he changes things. He adds things or change them it’s always different. And with the concertos is the same thing. I think the texture becomes so rich, so many decorations he writes. And even improvisation is also. You can find the improvisational, language there as well. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: it’s unbelievable. It’s how joyful and the character becomes. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. the adagio from the marchello, oboe Concerto is a very famous piece and also one of box absolute masterpieces that everyone should know. I actually start the theme song from my podcast. I’m playing it on, on the keyboard’s, the first. You know, little. Oh Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: yeah. Yes. Evan Goldfine: it’s just, it’s a magic four minutes of music. what were your personal reflections of that? what do you remember of that what are some of your, favorite interpretations of that? Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Oh, the interpretation. it’s hard to say, but I would, you know, when I have one of the favorite recordings of Bach played by the amazing pianist Alfred Cortot. And he has this recording of the second moment of, the harpsichord or keyboard concerto with the orchestra, which is in F Minor. And he plays a second movement arranged by himself only for Piano. Okay. And it’s, yeah, you can find the recording. it’s in the collection. I’ll link to that, everybody. Absolutely. It’s, from 1948. and this is a magic for me because this is so much, It feels like he’s in the room with you. the music really speaks to you. the rubato is so natural and it’s so sincere and touching. that’s a feeling. I wanted to create this movement of, second movement of Marcello concerto as well. So I think it’s so touching at the same time. it’s quite a simple melody, so it’s, yeah. So that’s the simpleness and, Humanity. So I think that’s a very important guide line for me, Evan Goldfine: I think in my favorite recordings of anything you are hearing, the interpretation of the individual self, of the player, But also that there is something more to it there. They have something to say about it and they’re communicating their personality somehow through this interpretation. and also it has to resonate with me that I like their interpret, that I like their personality almost. Yeah. That they’re coming up with something. You can have a very well played. Interpretation of something that just does not meet my taste. And there’s always a magic to figure out how are you gonna connect with that particular performer. I’d love to know about some other performers that evoke that sense for you. I mean, and how they may relate to one another because we’ve talked about Cortot and Gould so far, and Richter, and these are very different sorts of players Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Yeah. Evan Goldfine: Who are all amazing in their own ways and which is weird, right. how do we like all of those three? it doesn’t necessarily mean, like, I don’t understand that. So I’d love to hear what do you think about that? how come. We connect in certain ways with these very different sorts of interpretations. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Well, as I like to listen to many very different performers, so I never get stuck on one person or like one recording. Because I think it’s dangerous because otherwise it is a danger that you try to copy someone and you can’t do that. Evan Goldfine: Oh, that’s a professional danger for you, right? You can’t, Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: No, you, you, yes. Because you have to be yourself still and yeah. I have a few names, which also in the harpsichord world, which, yeah. Which the, the performance who I admire and they are completely different from each other, so it’s, also Andres Steier. So it’s, it’s a big Evan Goldfine: Oh yeah. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Important figure for me because I took a few lessons with him, private lessons and he is, it’s such a deep, honest approach, which I appreciate so much. So it’s, it’s quite a strict approach as well. so that because he sees the things certain way and sometimes doesn’t allow it to be as flexible, but this honesty about music and going to the truth to find what is, you know, what Bach wanted to say. I really do appreciate it a lot. I think I, it’s a bit in my system because when I started to play piano, I used to have lessons with my father and we could sit for Three hours Just to get to this truth and musical meaning of the composer. So I think I quite appreciate and love this approach. And then I, of course, I have another, completely different example is, Richard Eggar. Igar. who is also like my life partner Yes. And dual partner in piano. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: And that is, is a very different, very human, very emotional and pure music approach. And there’s lots of freedom and lots of space for being creative Evan Goldfine: So rigidity works, openness works, but there’s something that’s unsayable unknowable that makes it really great. Like, because you can come at it from different approaches and still achieve. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Yes, exactly. And I think like this, his braveness, you know, that’s a very, very special thing in all the music he is approaching. Yeah. So I try to find the braveness as well, like the improvisation, you know, when we play duo and it’s like the or limitations go so wild. Evan Goldfine: When you were sitting as a child with your father taking these lessons and it was three hours for three bars, was that something that you pushed against or was that something that was okay. Was he gentle? Was he very strict about it? how were those early lessons? ‘cause I can imagine those being fraught Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: with, Evan Goldfine: with your dad. I Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: think I didn’t have a choice, honestly. Yeah. Because, I started to play piano when I was four and a half, but my sister already played for two years Evan Goldfine: mm-hmm. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Piano. So I was inside of this world already and I loved it. I loved her listening to her playing piano, and it was just. Sort of something which yeah, I was not asked about, but I love the music. It was tough. It was, he was very strict and very, sometimes very difficult to understand what he exactly meant because I think he, some things he wanted for me as a child, I think you can request it from the adult people. Evan Goldfine: Right. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: And that was the most difficult thing for me to understand actually what he wants. means. Yeah. Yeah. Evan Goldfine: Right. ‘cause he didn’t have the, you think it was a life experience or ear training, or you just didn’t have the breadth of understanding, didn’t have enough hours at the keyboard to be able to, bridge that gap. what changed between ages, I don’t know, 10 and 20 That allowed you to be able to do more? Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: I started to really enjoy practicing from I think my like 12 when I became 12, 13. That’s the time when I discovered I can practice at the music school, you know, Not only practice at home. And knowing that my father is listening in the other room, right. Exactly. And try to come and, you know, every single bar, which is not correct or doesn’t sound as he would like it to be, he would come and comment to that. And so the school practice myself that really made a difference. Spent so many hours on practicing on my own and then was like when harpsichord joined, right? My life, that was even, even better. I only had harpsichord at school, so no chance to practice at home. Evan Goldfine: Right. More freedom. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: So yes. Evan Goldfine: Were there particular composers at that age that hit you more like, oh, I can now go over there and I can play Tchaikovsky if I want to. If that wasn’t welcome at home, how did that go? Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: You mean in which age? Evan Goldfine: Yeah. you can start to choose more of your own repertoire as you get a little older. Right? Maybe you’re syncing with Chopin, maybe you’re syncing more with Bach. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Well, I must say that I played Bach from the beginning, so from the very early age, and so I remember. Absolutely enjoying playing his, the inventions and the symphonies in three voices, and later on French suites as well as English suites. And somehow I always had a very warm relationship with music of Bach. And it’s, you know, it’s probably a couple of reasons for that. First one is quite practical. we used to have very, very heavy pianos at the school, the music school, and you know, with the music of Bach, I did have to struggle with it, finding the power to, you know, to actually reach the whole, with the, while playing the heavy, Evan: there’s no FF, like in, it’s not rock. Alexandra: Exactly. Exactly. Or like, to, to carry it through the very, very long. Clementi etude, which, goes for like six minutes without any stop. And then you completely overwhelmed with this technical, difficulties. And with music of Bach I could. Focus on music and just dive into his world and didn’t have to think, is it, loud enough or my fingers strong enough to play it. So that’s was a very, very special Evan Goldfine: right Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: So I always enjoyed, but, and the other, yeah, so of course the other reason, It’s, it’s a fascinating to see the, you know how in Bach music, two sides combine,like for one side is that I find his music very emotional and human and touching. And from the other side, we know that it, it’s, it’s also very clever music and very well structured, very strictly structured. Yeah. And there’s lots of symbolic meaning. There’s lots of numbers, which he connects him to the gods and to himself. So he was obsessed with the numbers. Yeah. So that’s, it’s this combination of two sides. I think it’s fascinating. And yeah, so that’s, that’s, how I connect. Evan Goldfine: I know very few artists who match the formal rigor and the emotional power that Bach does. And I think that that’s just the best for me. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Yes, exactly. So this is absolute fascination. And, and well the, this paradox thing as well as my daughters, now, they play piano and they play Bach, and they play this like the invention in two voices, which I used to play in around their age. And now when I look at this pieces, I think, oh, this is so difficult. You know how musically tricky it is. Yeah. I think yes. The more you know, the more questions you ask and the more things, yes, it becomes difficult as well. Evan Goldfine: It looks simple and to get it to sound great. Takes a lifetime. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yes. Evan Goldfine: I’m thinking about the numbers with Bach. The one that comes to mind is the first movement of the third English suite when it’s like, Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: yeah. Evan Goldfine: three and two and six are just sort of all interposed on top of each other for the whole time. Yes. And you can look at it like a math problem the whole way, but it’s not, it’s a beautiful piece of driving music in the right hands. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Yeah. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Evan Goldfine: Well, Alexandra, thank you again for taking some time talking about , your album and, and, and how you think about Bach and your experience on the keyboard with him. Again, the album is called Transformations. It’s out on the Linn label, and you can,find it in the links to the show notes here. And, thank you again and, and looking forward to hopefully seeing you in concert one day. Alexandra Nepomnyashchaya: Thank you very much, Evan, for having me. Evan Goldfine: Thank you. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit yearofbach.substack.com [https://yearofbach.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Guitarist Scott Tennant on the Lute Suites and Teaching Bach

What a pleasure to speak to guitar hero Scott Tennant about playing and teaching Bach. We talked about his early days with the instrument, how he became a nylon pumper, and how strange it is that most of us guitarists love the Spanish classics alongside the adaptations of the German master. Here are the albums mentioned in the podcast: John Williams, El Diablo Suelto, Guitar Music of Venezuela: Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/us/album/el-diablo-suelto-guitar-music-of-venezuela/1052785074]; Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/2S6fURCcyn8UfzJMqbcPjt]. Andrew York, Apple Music: Yamour [https://music.apple.com/us/album/yamour/569761044] Spotify: Yamour [https://open.spotify.com/album/5GrQYR1I0SKvXRAvdYzYRY]. David Russell, Apple Music: Music of Barrios [https://music.apple.com/us/album/music-of-barrios/1589010457] Spotify: Music of Barrios [https://open.spotify.com/album/6UCyB5M3f7CIjpOhxO8Nja]. Scott Tennant, Apple Music: Scott Tennant Guitar Recital [https://music.apple.com/ao/album/scott-tennant-guitar-recital/139277953]; Spotify: Scott Tennant on Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/artist/63GUUmvI0YImnV52wjNezl] Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, Apple Music: LAGQ [https://music.apple.com/us/album/lagq/262933011] Spotify: LAGQ [https://open.spotify.com/album/29aDbPm7OaXavrYXgO4CGK] Links: Scott Tennant: USC profile [https://music.usc.edu/scott-tennant/] A Year of Bach: yearofbach.substack.com [https://yearofbach.substack.com/] Evan Goldfine: evangoldfine.com [https://evangoldfine.com/] The brief clip of guitar when we talk about the first movement of the Lute Suite is from a live John Williams recording. Transcript: Evan Goldfine: Welcome to the podcast, A Year of Bach. My name is Evan Goldfine, and today I welcome Scott Tennant, one of the great classical guitar players and teachers of our era. Scott was a founding member of the Grammy Award-winning group, Los Angeles Guitar Quartet, and he’s currently the chair of the classical guitar program at USC’s Thornton School of Music. Scott, welcome. Scott Tennant: Thanks for inviting me, Evan. Glad to be here. Evan Goldfine: So let’s talk about Young Scott at the guitar. Were you drawn to Bach initially? Was it more like homework? Scott Tennant: Oh boy. I was, yeah, it was Bach. It was mostly the guitar itself and the sound of it. I started taking lessons when I was six at a music store and, what drew me to classical music in general was, you know, in these books that I was, my weekly lessons were in, there were little snippets of Bach, Anna Magdalena Bach, the famous, you know, little minuets and musettes. And then there was Tchaikovsky and I thought, this music sounds really unique as opposed to like the more poppy kind of songs I was working on. And I asked my teacher what. I love this composer. I love that composer. And she said, oh, well, that’s called classical music. And so I started doing a deep dive and, I of course, I then found Bach and it turns out my parents were very involved in having my brother and I listened to a lot of music. My mom had been a musician in her youth. so we were always listening to every kind of music. And we had, you know, remember the records. The LPs Evan Goldfine: Sure Scott Tennant: had a lot of those. That’s probably where I first heard Bach, and then I got this crazy record. By the then Walter Carlos, who became Wendy Carlos, Evan Goldfine: Switched on Bach, Scott Tennant: on a Moog synthesizer. And that blew me away. I heard the Bach Brandenburg Third Brandenburg, and that’s the first time I really, that’s the first time I heard any of the Brandenburgs on a Moog synthesizer. Evan Goldfine: Very strange. Scott Tennant: You know, and it just proves that Bach is very user friendly. You can play his music on pretty much anything. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Scott Tennant: And his music is so versatile and so anyway, yeah, I became a fan and slowly learned about Bach as I went on Evan Goldfine: Any special recordings besides switched on Bach from the seventies in those early years. Scott Tennant: Let’s see. We had orchestral recordings. They were mostly these LPs that had a combination of different composers and I can’t, I know the Chicago Symphony was one. Evan Goldfine: Mm-hmm. Scott Tennant: I don’t know, maybe it was Solti or who was conducting at the time. but they were orchestral, renditions and. yeah, my first, Bach listening experience was with orchestra, and frankly, they were kind of orchestral arrangements, I think, of, the famous, you know, the air and the G-string and Evan Goldfine: Sure. Scott Tennant: Those kinds of things. But, I didn’t really start diving into Bach until I started taking classical guitar lessons when I was 11. Then of course it was just like Bach. And I just started discovering, just going crazy, discovering all of this, the Bach that I could play. And then it was a, it was just a. Race track from there. Learn all the Bach. I could. Evan Goldfine: Was it Segovia? Was it Bream? Were these things you were listening to as references or were you just going by reading through it and hearing what it was, underneath your fingers and what your teacher was helping you with? Scott Tennant: Well, it was my first actual Bach album was John Williams playing all of the lute suites. Evan Goldfine: Yes. Scott Tennant: And that, of course, John Williams, I was such a huge fan and still a huge fan of his and I wore the record out. I think my dad had to buy me a second LP of the same recording. It just blew me away. And I realized now a, as a kid, I started things. I was kind of strong-willed and my teacher would tell me, no, don’t play us too hard. You know, and so, but I would start things anyway. And I remember starting the fourth lute suite, right? There are four lute suites. As you probably know, and I started the fourth one, da. And so I remember just struggling through it and I thought, well, you know, I can play it just like John Williams if I just copy him. So I listened to it all the time trying to copy. I kind of figured his fingerings out, which, you know, for a 12-year-old wasn’t too bad. And, of course I can never play it like him. But, that was a start and long story longer. That’s the only box suite I’ve ever actually recorded myself. I played it for years and years in concert, and because of that I started it when I was too young and my teacher was right. I wasn’t ready. I had a hangup on that prelude of the suite, the first movement of the suite. All my life and, to this day. So I stopped because of that prelude. I actually stopped programming Bach because I had such hangups with it. Evan Goldfine: Wait, what? What’s going on? Scott Tennant: I had, you know, because I learned it when it was too hard for me, and I eventually worked it out and was able to play it and learn the whole suite and started programming it. In fact, a lot of times I would begin my program with it, because I thought the prelude made such a great opener. And it does. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Scott Tennant: But, with all the nerves that go into performances anyway, and my, I should say maybe lack of confidence with that one movement I carried on for a while, for many years, and I just stopped programming that suite. And eventually, I just stopped programming Bach for a while just because I gave myself a hangup with Bach . It was so hard and I didn’t wanna mess up, I didn’t wanna make any mistakes with playing Bach because everybody loved Bach and everybody knew Bach the music. And so I just thought I’ll give it a rest. Evan Goldfine: Huh? I know that recording, it’s from your Guitar Recital record from many years ago. Mm-hmm. And it’s excellent. I love that record. There’s a kind of brashness and youthful confidence and this real, meaty sound. I think it’s great. Especially in that prelude. There’s those moments where the time the downbeat seems to be playing around when it goes down to those two notes back and forth da da da. Evan Goldfine: I came upon this organ piece. You know, there’s like 50 hours of organ music, and I suddenly heard the lute suite again. And I was like, that is strange and familiar. And I like it more on the guitar. I didn’t want all of the sustaining notes as much. I kind of liked the sound of the guitar. Once the note is plucked, it sort of goes away. And so you need to find the different ways to keep those strings and notes echoing or not, as your case of your interpretation might be. What about that moment that I’m talking about, that goes back and forth. Scott Tennant: Right. I know the spot that it happens in the, a section and then later in another key very symmetrically. The version most guitarists play has some element of the solo violin version. Which really opened my ears to what the piece was really about. The organ, of course, the sinphonia which is an F major. But it might be because of the bowing where the note you think is the downbeat, you know? Forgive my singing, isn’t the downbeat, right? I think that’s what you’re talking about. So, yes. Then I played a version where I kind of reversed, I inverted the two notes, the upper one and the lower one so that the downbeat of that is actually a lower note. Here’s the thing when in guitar, you know, when you use your thumb for a, let’s say, da, when you’re using your thumb, let’s say, in a pattern like that Evan Goldfine: mm-hmm. Scott Tennant: whether you intend for the note with the thumb to be played out or not, it’s going to be accented a little bit. Evan Goldfine: It’s gonna sound like a downbeat. Scott Tennant: Yeah. And so I just stopped. I refingered it and I stopped playing that note with the thumb and it worked out perfectly. The thing about Bach is that it’s, everything’s so interchangeable in a way. Everything that I was learning from an early age was kind of Segovia centric. You know, Segovia arranged a lot of different pieces. Instead of playing whole suites, he divided up suites and published them and played them separately because, he was trying to promote the guitar at that time, and he wanted he was afraid, well, if my audience sits through a whole suite, you know, they could get turned off by it. You know, let’s just give him a little bit of everything. So I had that in my head as I learned I was learning guitar from an early age. And so everything was Segovia centered, the Chaccone, his arrangement of the Chaconne very famous and many of his other Bach pieces. So I had this thing, well, you have to add a lot of bass notes, right? To, You know, because he would reconfigure things and he would take a single line, like a violin and put a lot of base notes in. And so then there was this trend. Because of that, there was this trend later of, well, let’s get away from that. And everybody was playing pieces more or less in the original form, like the single line, even going back to the original key that worked, let’s say on violin, but, or maybe on cello, but maybe it didn’t work as well on guitar. So then I went through that phase and as a student, I arranged all of the Bach cell suites, wrote them down, by hand and have a notebook full of them of all the cello suites that I arranged, only adding a little, base notes sparingly because of that philosophy that I built up in my head. And so now. I’m completely turned around. I think Bach’s thing was adaptability. So if he had heard me playing a guitar with all these strings, playing a single line without adding anything, he would think I was crazy. He would say, what? What are you doing wasting all of these other notes you can be playing. Evan Goldfine: There’s opportunity. Scott Tennant: Yeah. And when I do arrange something, I don’t add much, but I do fill things out. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. How is Segovia living with you today? It’s such an important musician for so many of us, and you’ve recorded an album of Segovia’s music, which is excellent. Probably your most recent release. How has that lived with you and how has his performances changed in your mind as you’ve, come into your own, throughout your career? Scott Tennant: Segovia will have always have a particular throne in my pantheon of heroes. Because, you know, when I was young, he was probably the biggest influence and he influenced, I remember reading a quote that he mentioned about John Williams, so everybody, Parkening, Williams, everybody had the quote by Segovia. And so he was the king. And, the guitar has progressed a lot. And there are players that play in with different techniques now with different approaches to plucking and all that, and certainly different approaches to fingering. So there’s been all that happening over the decades, but I still hold him in very high esteem and I listened to him a lot and now it’s even more pleasurable to go back and listen to Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Scott Tennant: A Segovia recording and watch a concert. Evan Goldfine: When I first started playing classical guitar, I loved the Spanish music. In the very beginning, just playing the root e minor chord and just strumming down. It’s like, what is this amazing big sound? All these different overtones coming through, and you felt it resonating against your body. So, that sound, the early Spanish music that I learned of Albeniz and Rodrigo and Tarrega, which, you’ve recorded and also Bach. I think that most classical guitar students, whether they’re in the beginning or they’re advanced, tend to like both the traditional Spanish music and Bach on the guitar, which is weird because those tastes don’t necessarily fit together on their own outside of the guitar. Do you agree with that take? What do you make of that? That we all love this music so much that’s so different from each other. Scott Tennant: I agree with that. I know what you’re saying. There’s something about people who are drawn to the guitar. It’s a lot to do with the sound. A lot of them, first of all, do come from a electric guitar background, so most of the classic guitarists I know now have, started in rock in playing with the rock band in the garage or playing jazz or, I know a couple that even played come from playing country and they just, and they aspire to this sort of classical, it’s kind of this mountaintop that everybody wants to get to. So with the finger style and the sound you get from the nylon strings, it’s a very special type of instrumental style. And so I think anything, to fanatics like myself, I remember back when I was, that person you’re talking about, that young student. Everything sounded good on guitar. I just loved to listen to anything and, but it was amazing that Bach, specifically yeah, it was, I got just as much pleasure and thrill out of listening to Bach than I did listening to a really fiery Spanish like Rodrigo. Yeah. Wow. There was a discovery. And now that I’m a teacher, I’ve been for a long time and I see young students coming. There’s still that fascination with the sound of playing Bach on a guitar just like Albeniz or any other composer. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Scott Tennant: You know. Evan Goldfine: Yeah, I love the way that the instrument resonates against my body, it just feels more connected. I’ve been learning how to play piano again, I took a 35, 40 year break in the middle. I’m getting back to it and there’s something very important and tactile, but the instrument isn’t resonating against me. And I think you get that with the guitar especially and probably some of the bowed instruments people to get that feeling. And it can be a quite a warm sound as well as you can get some real volume out of it too. You can play beautifully soft, and beautifully when going, fortissimo as well. So there’s a huge range and I think people resonate with that. Too. Scott Tennant: It is true. Yeah. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Scott Tennant: Very true. Evan Goldfine: So you’ve been a teacher for many years and one of the themes that I keep returning to in these interviews that I’ve been doing is sussing out what makes a great performance. And, you’ve been seeing these younger students kind of, put their own personal individual spins on all of these pieces that you’ve heard many times. How do you articulate what a good performance is? Scott Tennant: Ultimately, when I’m hearing a performance, I wanna make sure I hear the performer as well as the composer. So, I know what Bach sounds like stylistically, and a lot of other composers, I know sometimes I know the actual piece of music I’m hearing so I know the music, I know the style, but I feel if I don’t hear the performer speaking to me, then something’s lacking. And certainly you know, it’ll be a lifelong struggle with myself too. Just doing that. always trying to put my you know, how can my stamp on it, how can I communicate this? That really reflects myself. And I try to instill that in the students. And we work on that a lot. So obviously we work on learning. We want the right notes. Evan Goldfine: Sure. Scott Tennant: Stylistically ornamented in a certain way but not over ornamented, you know, this really intricate stuff. But then in the end I want to hear the person that’s playing it. So it’s making it personal. Evan Goldfine: How does that personality come through in a performance? And I, you know, I’m just bugging you on this ‘cause this is something that I’ve been ruminating on for months since I started these interviews. It’s like what actually makes, how does one convey one’s self through their musical performance. I mean, I hear it, I know all the different kinds of pianists and guitarists and musicians that just sound like them. I don’t know how you do that. Like it’s a magic trick to know that’s a Segovia record or that’s a Scott Tennant record, or, you know, that LAGQ is maybe cheating a little bit because of the sonic timbre that you get with the four guitars. But what does it take to create that unique sound? Scott Tennant: You brought up a good point about knowing when you’re hearing a particular performer, it comes down to, of course, their style, but their tone and with guitar, those listeners who don’t play classical guitar or know the details. You know, we pluck with, we have some fingernails grown out on our right hand to pluck the string. Depending on the person and their style and their teacher, et cetera, the nail could be longer or shorter. And that could change daily depending on the weather. You know, you reach into your pocket for your keys and you come out with half a nail left, something broke. So we’re all, we’re always gluing, repairing, things on our nails to just keep them so we can play. But ultimately you have to have control of your tone and because it’s a direct contact, we don’t have a key or a mouthpiece or a bow. It’s really, and that’s what I love about it’s very tactile. It’s a very personal thing. So ultimately it’s, working on your tone to the point where you develop your own touch, where I can tell just by listening, which one of my students or teachers or friends are playing. Right. Evan Goldfine: That’s so cool. Yeah. To be able to do that. I think some very astute listeners can do that. With their records, you know, that they just know which particular performances they are just by picking up, a particular beginning of the Beethoven fifth Symphony. I can probably do that with many records, but there’s thousands of recordings now of these things. You know, how many Albeniz you know, Leyenda have you heard? I mean, it’s there’s hundreds, Scott Tennant: A few. Evan Goldfine: I’d love to talk a little bit about one of your ex band mates, Andrew York, a great guitarist and composer. You know, given how much guitar people play. I’ve been sort of surprised by the relative lack of new classical repertoire for guitar that people love compared to, the flourishing of that music that people play that’s 80 years old. A lot of the energy, in contemporary guitar composition has moved towards steel string and there’s a lot of like popping and tapping and drumming on the guitar, some of which is fine, some of which is a very small amount is excellent but a lot of it is just sort of flashy my aunt would call it flash on trash. that’s, that’s what I’m gonna probably edit that part out. But I think Andrew is probably the greatest compositional voice of contemporary classical guitar. People love to play that music. And I’m curious as to what your take is on his music. You’ve played his recordings and his arrangements for decades and even featured some of his compositions on your solo records. So what can Andrew do? Why is his language so special? What makes it unique and what resonates with you about it? Scott Tennant: Well, of course Andy’s been one of my closest friends for so long. We met at USC when he first came in as a grad student. We had a program called Studio Guitar. It was called Commercial Guitar then for a while. But really, he was a jazz guitarist that came to study jazz. But he already had sort of mastered the classical guitar style, with the plucking, with the nails and, I know one of his heroes he would talk about a lot was Ralph Towner. Because Ralph was doing the same kinds of things that Andy, I think really aspired toward, you know, maybe writing his own music playing, you know, with the guitar in the left leg, you know, classical style, et cetera. And he was already writing music for acoustic guitar back then when I met him. And I’ve always loved his style. It is people friendly, it’s, It’s not challenging to listen to more than it as it is satisfying and deeply personal in most cases, you know, people can latch onto something that speaks to them when they listen to his music, including myself. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Scott Tennant: And, I’ll always be a fan of his music. Evan Goldfine: It is very user friendly, as you were say, or listener friendly? I wonder if there’s some pressure from the establishment when people are writing these music. I mean, we’re a hundred years after 12 tone rows were invented and 70 years after Shostakovich and then, you know, going out to like Webern and all these kind of really out guys are, is it sort of declasse to write something as user-friendly as that or is it not seen as impressive among in the conservatories? Is that why we might be not seeing such accessible music? Scott Tennant: I think music has to be genuine. I think, you know, Schoenberg for instance, started out as a neoclassical composer developed this idea of 12 tone tonality however you want to phrase it. And then a lot of people followed and it was kind of the new thing. Everybody’s looking for the new thing. But I always found that music not genuine. I have friends who it speaks to but ultimately speaking particularly of Andy’s music, it’s genuine. I mean, he’s, it’s really, you know, it’s him. And I don’t want to suggest at all that by saying it’s, it’s listener friendly, that it’s easy music. Evan Goldfine: Oh, no, Scott Tennant: no. Or that it’s not deep. But I think people, I know him so I can tell it’s, you know, it’s him speaking through the music, but I think those who don’t know him also feel a real connection because it comes from a true place. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Scott Tennant: And not something that somebody’s trying to be. He is just who he is and he expresses that exceedingly well. Evan Goldfine: Yeah, there was a track on an album he put out a few years ago called Yamour, the title track from that album where out of nowhere he starts singing and he’s singing along with it. And it’s such a surprise. You know, he’s, I don’t think he ever sung on record before, but it was such an amazing organic piece of music that, like, it felt a spontaneous outpouring almost, and it was so key to that piece. And, you know, Andy doesn’t have the best voice in the world, but it’s perfect in that moment. And, that piece really speaks to me a lot. Scott Tennant: He wrote a piece for me called, you know, he was always trying to get me to come out of my shell and it’s hard to believe, I guess, that I have his shell, but I am by nature a shy person and, so I could do the classical persona really well because it’s somebody else’s music. And I put my stamp on it and he always said, man, you gotta commit more and come outta your shell. And I didn’t know what he meant. So finally he appeared with this piece. I wrote you a piece, and it’s called Letting Go. And you have to sing. And I was oh God, don’t make me sing. Don’t make people hear me sing. Please. And, it’s kind of like Yamour, where the vocal part is very easy. It’s very simple, and it’s completely woven into the fabric of the music. You know, you have to do it. So, I play that. I don’t play it nearly enough now because I just, you know, when it comes time for you to sing, I just, I’m still a little bit shy about that, but, and he’s been doing more and more of that. Evan Goldfine: Someone, you know, Scott Tennant: kind of other elements. Evan Goldfine: As someone who is admitting to being shy, I mean, you’re a professional performer, in front of other people, does that play into stage fright or have you been able to manage that? Or do you just know the material so well? It’s just a part of you that you can easily make that outpouring through your discipline and your artistry. Scott Tennant: Of course we all get, you know, I try not to use the word nervous and I don’t want my students to use the word nervous. We say excited. So, yeah, I get overly excited sometimes with a little too much adrenaline and the sweats. I think that’s natural. I think it means that you care about what you’re going to present. You care about the music. But I always enjoyed sharing music with people, especially as a kid. I’d learned I’d play something half learned. In fact, I would just stop at a particular section if I didn’t learn that part yet. Just ‘cause I wanted to play it for people. I so just enthusiastic about the music and I wanted people to hear it. I still have that. I’ve never been the type to, I don’t over promote myself at all, or, I just enjoyed playing music for people. Whenever I felt I was too much in the spotlight I would shy away a little bit. And that’s, and that ties in again to Andy. Writing “Letting go” for me because, you know, he wanted me to open up and feel comfortable with going beyond just sharing notes and sharing more of myself. So that was a good lesson in itself. I think we all get nervous. It’s a fight or flight thing where you’re speaking in front of people and frankly, I get a little fight or flight with things like this where I have to talk. I’m not a great speaker. Evan Goldfine: You’re doing great. Scott Tennant: But there’s, I think it’s a natural thing when you’re suddenly in front of people and you feel that you’re in the spotlight, maybe being judged. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Scott Tennant: So what I’ve done is I turned that around and I consider people who are there staring at me waiting for me to do something. I see them as my guests, so they’re in my living room, right? And they’re all my guests, right? I’m not in their space, they’re in my space and, you know, I can look out, I like to talk to them and explain the music, and it becomes more of a communication love fest, and you make that connection. They make the connection and it completely lowers that screen you put in front of yourself of being scared. Evan Goldfine: I’m taken by your observation that you didn’t want too much of a spotlight on yourself. And you ended up having a breakthrough career in a quartet, which allows you to share that spotlight with three other people, which was Yeah. That strategy is great for you, that you had that opportunity. I was, it was, I always heard you as the anchor sound of that band, I don’t know if that resonates with you, but that, thanks. That’s a compliment that I’m trying to offer. Scott Tennant: I got, oh, I got most of the fast stuff just because I was a speed demon when I was a kid. Evan Goldfine: Mm-hmm. Scott Tennant: And I could just, if they wanted something fast, I could just at least fake it. I got a little tired of being the pyro technician, but you know, I have to say it was fun. It was just so much fun. And, yeah, it was good for a kind of a shy, supportive type like me. Evan Goldfine: Yeah, Scott Tennant: to be in a group. Evan Goldfine: Well, I’m glad we got to do a little psychotherapy also at the end of this conversation, Scott Tennant: I feel much better. Evan Goldfine: Thank you. Scott, thank you so much for spending some time with us today. I had one final question for you know, you’re, you’re working with ambitious students now at USC as you have been for many years. How are the kids these days doing? I’ve been reading about how the attention spans are going down and disciplines going down. Do these students still have the same sort of drive as the ones you saw 20 years ago? And do they love Bach as much as, the ones from that period as well? Scott Tennant: With all the things that are going on that you mentioned, the attention spans, it’s a real thing. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. Scott Tennant: Of all the things I could mention, everybody still is crazy about Bach. They all wanna play Bach. And if I were to tell them to go listen to some classical not even broke, just go listen to some music, they would choose Bach. They would choose Bach. Evan Goldfine: Good choice. Scott Tennant: Yeah. And I, and I’m happy to listen, you know, when they do choose it. Evan Goldfine: One final question. Any particular recordings that are important to you right now that you’ve been listening to, of late? Scott Tennant: Oh, gosh. I still love listening to John. Anything with John Williams, my teacher, Pepe Romero and his brothers. I, they’re always on the top of my listening shelf. And then, David Russell, Yeah, just the old greats. I was really saddened to hear that Kazuhito Yamashita Evan Goldfine: Oh yeah. Scott Tennant: Passed away recently because I knew him. I was his chauffeur whenever he would come to LA. Evan Goldfine: Yeah. What kind of guy was he? Scott Tennant: He was very serious. Very, you know, you have to in context, you know, as a kid he was playing concerts from a very early age. His father. So I hear, I actually asked him about it. He agreed. He said, yes, it’s true. His father, he had to practice 12 hours a day. Evan Goldfine: Oh my goodness. Scott Tennant: His father took care of everything. Here’s when you eat, here’s when you sleep. We travel here, but even during the concert days, it was so instilled in him that when he finally got on the road by himself, he would practice all day and then give the concert. A very disciplined person, but my task, my self imposed task was, I’m gonna make him laugh. I need to see him smile to have some fun. And so we, you know, we would go out and have some dinner. He would loosen up a little bit and yeah. but he was very serious, in a good way. He really loved the guitar and loved music And, so he’ll be missed. Evan Goldfine: The only other person I’ve heard about the discipline, with the guitar from a father was the great jazz guitarist. Joe Pass. Scott Tennant: Oh, Evan Goldfine: A very abusive father, made him practice hours and hours a day. And he became one of the greatest, but I think it was at some personal cost. My favorite albums from, John Williams and,. David Russell are Latin American Guitar Festival by John Williams and, the Music of Barrios by David Russell, which is just a wonderful album. Scott, thanks for sharing that with us and also your love of Bach and for all the great music I will link to your website. And thank you again. Scott Tennant: Thanks, Evan. It keep doing what you’re doing. It’s a wonderful thing and people are gonna benefit from it. Just hearing how much you love Bach and how much you love music. Evan Goldfine: Thank you. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit yearofbach.substack.com [https://yearofbach.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Erik Hall on Bach and the Minimalists

A conversation with Erik Hall, a multi-instrumentalist, composer, and one of the most compelling interpreters of the minimalist canon. We talk about the surprising resonances between J.S. Bach and composers like Steve Reich, Charlemagne Palestine, Simeon ten Holt, and Philip Glass. They discuss Hall’s acclaimed trilogy of solo overdubbed reinterpretations, his upcoming ensemble recording of Canto Ostinato with Sandbox Percussion and Metropolis Ensemble, the architecture of rhythm and harmony that links Bach to the minimalists, and what it means to engage deeply with another composer’s work. More at yearofbach.substack.com [http://yearofbach.substack.com]. Albums Discussed: Erik Hall – Music for 18 Musicians (Steve Reich) (2020) Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/1htaihWHjMXZTupJanFnfC] | Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/us/album/reich-music-for-18-musicians/1498100844] Erik Hall – Canto Ostinato (Simeon ten Holt) (2023) Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/6nRzGIFEUCxf19vdEdZEZ5] | Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/us/album/simeon-ten-holt-canto-ostinato/1655755115] Erik Hall – Solo Three (2026) Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/2Jh9eQ939mpMk49dTWexTv] | Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/us/album/solo-three/1846381608] Dennis Johnson – November (perf. R. Andrew Lee) Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/0SBE1lxLDsk6AEyGX4kNtJ] | Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/us/album/dennis-johnson-november/646572858] Oren Ambarchi – Shebang (2022) Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/1khpMdVH3EXz5RWt4WRAbg] | Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/us/album/shebang/1630427079] Chilly Gonzales – Solo Piano (2004) Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/79hPlit22yH2TfyeW1a32K] | Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/us/album/solo-piano/1134154224] Todd Sickafoose – Tiny Resistors (2008) Spotify [https://open.spotify.com/album/26fHrmtKuu0KreNEbuB7AH] | Apple Music [https://music.apple.com/us/album/tiny-resistors/379770957] Links: Erik Hall website: erikhall.net [http://www.erikhall.net/] Evan Goldfine website: evangoldfine.com [http://evangoldfine.com] ──────────────────────────────────────── [00:00:00] Evan Goldfine:Hello and welcome to the podcast, A Year of Bach. My name is Evan Goldfine and today I’m welcoming instrumentalist Erik Hall, one of my favorite interpreters of what’s often called minimalist music. He’s released a trio of homespun, overdubbed solo records, including my favorite album of 2023, an interpretation of Canto Ostinato by the Dutch composer, Simeon ten Holt. He’s re -recorded that for a new recording with Sandbox Percussion and the Metropolis Ensemble for release in April 2026, which I’m very excited to hear live in New York in a couple of weeks. In January 2026, he also released Solo 3, a new album which includes interpretations of works by Charlemagne Palestine, Steve Reich, and others. Today, we’ll talk about the experience of playing and listening to Bach and the minimalist canon, and we’ll talk about how those rivers intersect. There is an underexplored crossover that I’m sure we’ll all find illuminating. And with that, welcome Erik. Erik Hall:Thank you very much for having me. It’s a pleasure. Evan Goldfine:So prior to these minimalist albums that you’ve recorded, you made some albums under the name[00:01:00]In Tall Buildings, which are more of a pop rock singer songwriter vibe with some electronic elements. And you were also in a band called Nomo, which was heavily influenced by Afro beat music. So where, where’s your origin, with your listening and where did you start? And how did that expand into all these different realms? Erik Hall:Yeah, I mean, It’s been a really winding path, and it started as when I was a kid, and I was always into very different kinds of music. I was studying classical piano, I was playing in a youth orchestra in Chicago as a percussionist. I went to college as a jazz studies drummer. And then, that’s where I kind of discovered Steve Reich and a whole lot of other kinds of contemporary music and joined a band and started going on tour making records. And, just kind of following every thread that seemed interesting to me. Somehow. I stumbled my way back towards classical music in this kind of modern era, this new chapter of mine, making these interpretation[00:02:00]records. Evan Goldfine:How did Bach play into the musical landscape at all? And I guess that was part of your classical studies when you were younger. And how has that music stayed with you even through all of these other bands? Erik Hall:I think Bach is someone we all come back to, always. And there was kind of the initial study when I was a kid, that I think we all do. When I was in college, I distinctly remember, voice leading classes with the great pianist and musicologist James Dapogny. He was a professor at University of Michigan and was one of the leading scholars. of early jazz. And, just an incredible guy. Anyway, he was my college level, Bach, teacher. And then, it was funny. At one point, Nomo ended up at this, like, jazz, it was Aspen, it was Jazz Aspen Snowmass Festival. And we ended up in this clinic, and we were taking[00:03:00]courses from, Loren, Schoenberg, I want to say. I think he’s on Substack, yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised, yeah. I haven’t checked in with what he’s doing lately, but he had this room full of like jazz dudes from all over the country, and every morning we started with him and every day for, I want to say like 10 days, We studied Goldberg variations and it was like, we started out by talking about the Goldberg variations and I think we all thought, well, this is great to talk about. I wonder what we’ll talk about tomorrow. We walked in the next morning and it was, no, still Goldberg variations. And like literally for a week and a half, the whole course was centered around that, that, that body of work. And, we all just, it was incredible. We got so much out of it. Evan Goldfine:What did the jazz guys start digging into the Goldbergs with? Erik Hall:Well, I[00:04:00]don’t actually know that everybody appreciated the level of depth that we took. If I’m being honest, it seemed to be like his kind of pet project that everyone kind of had varying levels of resonance but thankfully I, it’s always kind of stuck with me. And, I know that piece is probably a lot of people’s kind of gateway to Bach, but. For me, it’s, it’s still really, a go -to. Evan Goldfine:Were there any special recordings of Bach from your early years that you would return to as a percussionist? What, what kind of flavors of Bach’s music were you most drawn to? Erik Hall:I didn’t really listen to Bach as a kid. I studied it as a pianist, and it, so for, for better or worse, I had somewhat of an obligatory relationship with it as a kid. I love the Goldberg recordings. I love new[00:05:00]recordings by Vikingur Olafsson and, I, I have this particular kind of somewhat random, super dusty multi LP album of chorales, that, that seem to always come out at, at Christmas time. Perfect. It can be a little bit even like a kitschy relationship sometimes. Boy, it, it just, will always have a place in my heart. Evan Goldfine:I had a similar experience, when I was learning to play classical guitar, there’s a whole repertoire of Bach adapted, mostly by Segovia and his contemporaries and followers, adapting all sorts of pieces, the violin sonatas, some cello suites to the guitar, and hearing it, I listened to some records and it didn’t quite sink at first. But playing it along with hearing it, watching the architecture and how that came to life was something that really sparked a seed in me back 25, 30 years ago when I first started playing.[00:06:00]Yeah. And it grows, it’s grown over time as I got deeper. So that’s, that’s been part of the fun part about this project too, seeing how Bach is sort of the anchor point for so much of this music. Yeah. And maybe I’ll ask you how you got back to the minimalist composers and how that became the source of, and we can talk about the word minimalist and how that’s sort of a controversial word in itself. But yes, I use that to cover the style of music largely defined by, like, Steve Reich and Philip Glass in the 1960s and 70s. But how did you find your way back there, being like, this is music that should be reinterpreted in a different kind of way? Erik Hall:It happened pretty organically, honestly. I discovered Steve Reich in college. We focused on his early tape phasing tape loop pieces in my musicology course. But then, I stumbled upon Music for 18 Musicians kind of on my own. And that was like, my kind of,[00:07:00]epiphany, it really made a mark on me and it kind of stuck with me as one of my favorite pieces of music. Evan Goldfine:It is a seminal work of that whole era. Erik Hall:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s undeniable and it’s so, that was, over 20 years ago and fast forward to, I think it was 2018 or 19., I had been in various bands. I’d been making records, like you said, as In Tall Buildings, touring with the band Nomo, touring with the band Wild Belle, and I kind of was coming off of a couple of album cycles and tours and then wanted to kind of dig into something in my studio, but I didn’t really feel, compelled to be writing or writing songs, but I wanted to be recording, and I, was kind of spinning my wheels, and my wife made this kind of passing comment just like, wait, well, why don’t you just do a cover of Music for 18 Musicians or something?[00:08:00] Evan Goldfine:Oh, that’s so great. Erik Hall:And that’s truly how it began. And it immediately struck me as a great idea of something to try. And I started, and it just went pretty well every step of the way. I was happy. It seemed a little bit crazy, but I, I kind of felt it out and realized like, no, I think I could actually tackle this and it could be compelling. Evan Goldfine:It’s a bit of a crunchy record with a lot of electronics, more so than other recordings, which are. I think almost exclusively acoustic. How did you come to that? How did you deal with some of those gaps between the organic voices, for example, or bassoons and layering that onto other instruments and those choices that you made? Erik Hall:Well, the approach was really, it’s, it’s pretty simple. It’s just, it’s the instruments that I have and my studio and can play, rather than the instruments it was written for. So that was the concept and because I’ve been[00:09:00]making records in my studio with, like you said, more kind of like pop rock oriented works, but, still there’s electric guitar and bass there’s synths. But there’s also piano, an old Hammond organ, Fender Rhodes electric piano. It was actually mostly recorded acoustically, with mics and in, in my space. But, because there’s some electronic instruments, tones. Yeah, it has this kind of modern electronic sound. But, within the kind of overall palette of the instruments that I have and can wield myself, there were very much, decisions to make with regard to which instrument of mine ought to best convey each particular instrument of his. It wasn’t random. Each instrument had to adhere to a certain energy and convey the same, not exactly the same timbre, but just have the same kind of identity and, and, and energy as his. So it was[00:10:00]a really fun puzzle to solve really. Evan Goldfine:Yeah, yeah, it totally works. For me, the minimalists are about celebrating very subtle shifts in harmony and timbre that are accentuated through pulse and pattern, right? So Bach’s counterpoint. To bring it back to the, to our main subject at hand. His is more like explicit harmonic movement and the timbre is more implied through instrumentation or interpretations by the individual performer. But the rhythmic flow in Bach is also crucial. Without that, it just sounds sort of flat. So where do you, where do you think this overlap between these two genres, between Bach and the minimalists? Erik Hall:Well, I’ve never articulated this, but I agree that there’s this common thread, with regard to the rhythmic information and the harmonic development and this kind of gratifying[00:11:00]arc, there’s a journey that, you, embark on. And the pacing and the, and the, sometimes it’s repetition and, and sometimes it’s just the, rhythmic density, is absolutely a factor in, in conveying the spirit of that path. I think it’s, and again, I haven’t thought about it in this way, but I absolutely. I see a similarity there between someone like Bach and someone like Reich, for me as a listener at least. Evan Goldfine:Yeah, for sure. I mean, Bach is more dense in a certain way, and maybe even more intricate. But because it’s moving so quickly a lot of the time, it’s hard to get in this sort of trance state that you can get to as a listener with a Steve Reich or a Glass or like your more recent album with, with the Charlemagne Palestine, that piece, the name of the strumming, what’s, I’m sorry. Erik Hall:Strumming Music, Evan Goldfine:Strumming Music.[00:12:00] Yeah. It is very highly driven, but it is barely moving, and it takes a long time to get from one place to another, but, suddenly, you’re in a completely different spot than the first one, and you find that in Bach also, you’re in a completely different key, but he’s driving you, he’s bringing you there bit by bit, but you really have to be more focusing on, like, how he’s doing that, rather than recognizing yourself, In a new spot as in this other sort of music. Erik Hall:Strumming music is probably the most actual minimalist piece that I’ve engaged with, the most subtle shifts in harmonic overtone presence and information, that the most subtle increase in, in intensity and how you’re hitting the instrument. And how that change in the performance interacts with the gear I’m using to capture these[00:13:00]performances. Like where the mics are, and whether I’m compressing, or if so, how much. I really enjoyed tapping into some of the personality of the studio itself. I’m not talking about post -processing or any sort of trickery, but just using the studio as an instrument, using all of those tools together to really highlight those subtle tiny changes. I love that. Yeah. Evan Goldfine:What do you think about the beat in this kind of music also, because if you’re just like with Bach, I think it’s if it’s too much on the grid, it’ll feel metronomic and kind of boring and even lifeless. Yeah, but you need to keep the pulse going at the same time. So it can’t be too far off the grid. And this is something that I’ve struggled to articulate in words. A great[00:14:00]performance for me is one that is both not too metronomic and not too afield that it’s resonating with this sort of emotional rhythm, is, is the phrase that I’ve, I’ve come back to. What do you think about that in this sort of music that’s meant to be so exacting on the beat? Erik Hall:I agree that there’s a balance there and, for some of these more complex pieces that I’ve tackled, I have used a metronome, a click. and so in that sense, Like Music for 18 Musicians, for example, or on this new record Music For a Large Ensemble Those are on the grid technically and pro tools, but they’re not quantized, right? I’m using the grid essentially just as a metronome, because there’s a lot of things to cover and I want to make sure I don’t have some sort of train wreck, but there’s still a lot of,[00:15:00]smear in the time, that there’s, there’s that many performances stacked of just me playing and I am not going in and cleaning up and making it perfect. All of those little micro differences and where I’m hitting the, the beat are there, and, and so I, I have felt good about that level of imperfection and just the human element. And so I think that for this music to be on the grid is one thing, but for it to be quantized, that would be putting it into a completely different style of music, maybe. And so, yeah, I think it’s, I think it’s really important to be deliberate about those choices. Evan Goldfine:Yeah, I also felt the reason why the Canto Ostinato album works so well is that it does have this blend of the, the human on the grid. So far, for listeners who might not know this,[00:16:00]this is a relentless and wonderful piece. It was new to me when I heard it on your album. And I ended up going hunting for other recordings cause I liked the album so much. And I think that your recording is the only one that performs it with a sense of drive that it needs. And I think you’re playing it at a pretty brisk tempo relative to some of the others, and it’s a little bit more of a modest sized composition than some other, interpreters, which can go on for two, three hours long, which is, it just doesn’t, it didn’t give it to me, what I was wanting. And I think the compressed nature of it, and also the human imperfections of it provided some excitement that I didn’t have in some of those other recordings. On this record you were playing three different kinds of keyboards and overdubbing. What was the challenge and opportunities of doing that all by yourself with those three different Layers of tracking, what kind of decisions did you have to make in terms of balance,[00:17:00]were there re -recordings, were you chopping in, what were your misgivings, go on from there. Erik Hall:Yeah, that was one where, like backing up to Music for 18 Musicians, when I recorded that, I did each of the 14 sections in a day. So I would record every instrument on one section, and then the next day I’d start with the next section, and I would kind of sew them together, in Pro Tools. With Canto Ostinato, there’s 106 technical sections in that piece. It’s really more divided into, like, giant swaths of, chunks of that music. So, I got kind of a handle on the whole piece. But I knew that I wanted to record it, in pieces. Like, I didn’t want to just sit down and play the piano from start to finish. I wanted to record each hand separately. I wanted to record[00:18:00]two different, right hand variations that were recorded separately. There’s the left hand on the organ. There’s the left hand on the piano. There’s a Fender Rhodes kind of switching between the two different right -handed parts. So I did it in sections. At no point did I play the piece from start to finish without stopping. So that might come as a surprise to some listeners or like, like cheating, but it was just a matter, cause I knew I wanted to create a recording that was not just a straight acoustic performance, but this studio environment, kind of immersive, larger than life, like the instruments are right there, and you are amongst them, and the stereo field is wide, and, I was okay with that, and so, it’s funny, because it wasn’t until After[00:19:00]I had finished and released that record that I actually finally learned how to actually play the piece two hands from start to finish, straight through as as one would, and I can do that, but it was kind of like a backwards approach to getting to know that piece. Evan Goldfine:Yeah. There are a series of variations on that record, which I’ve listened to a lot. My son is deeply into astronomy, and we often go up north in upstate New York to an astronomy club, and when we come back at the end of the night, it’s often late, and he’s like, he wants to listen to that album on the way back so it’s such a cool thing so it’s like from like 11:30 to 12:30 in the morning and it’s just it’s a great after watching astronomy sort of album you can imagine yeah so there’s little groovy sections There’s this fun part[00:20:00]with like a dotted quarter where the it’s like coming before the beat. It’s like in the 20s or 30s of the sections that are just like little hooks that I keep remembering, even though these things are very similar to one another a lot of the time. But there’s little shades of differences in each of these variations, and sometimes they’ll go up an octave or two on the keyboards, but there’s an overarching feel of this beautiful development and drama. Which hits at about, its peak about two -thirds of the way through, and there’s all these great themes that you’ve got, and then there’s a gentle wind down, and it feels really satisfying, and it feels like there’s an endpoint, and this is about variation 87 or so, and then there’s another 15 minutes, and you get another recapitulation of that stretch, but it sort of feels like I was so satisfied at that, like 40, like maybe 42 minutes in, it’s in the score to keep going, right? Where did you feel about that? Is my experience resonant with yours? Did you feel like, do you, do[00:21:00]you like that last part or didn’t feel like, I was like, I felt so pleased at the 40 minute mark. It’s like, what’s happening? I have another, I have another 20 minutes with this. Erik Hall:It totally resonates and it’s so funny because I did consider stopping after 85 or whatever one it is. I thought about it, and because I also knew that I was going to put this record out with, I work with the label Western Vinyl and we were putting these out on LP and I wanted it to fit on an LP and I thought, well, if this were a 40, minute record it’ll sound all the better, on an LP, but, it’s interesting because if you listen to, I would say the kind of like quintessential, original recording maybe of, of Canto Astonado, it’s the four piano live concert recording. And, it’s three hours and that gives a whole[00:22:00]separate meaning and emphasis on the back half of that piece, it’s like that section it’s section 88 that actually seems to go on forever. On my version that’s 15 or so minutes, it’s section 88, that has all these, it’s like 88 A B on to double Z, I think. so it was a little bit of a needle to thread when I decided, no, I’m not going to cut that off of my recording. I’m going to include it. I want to do the complete piece. I like the length, that I ended up with, with 88 and section 91, which is kind of like a variation on 88, but, I agree, like after the initial, when you first hear the kind of main theme that, which in and of itself is this incredible reward, you’ve been listening to this crazy,[00:23:00]angular thing, and suddenly there’s this like beautiful melody. I don’t want to give too much away to anyone who hasn’t listened yet, but it’s, It’s awesome. It’s an incredible piece. Evan Goldfine:Huge payoff, Erik Hall:Huge payoff. But it’s like what I love about the complete piece is that you, you get to return, there’s without, without the back half of the piece, there’s no, there’s no refrain,? And, the way that all of the different recordings and performances choose to get back to that theme at section 95 I think is really cool to examine because sometimes it’s this great build up and this huge, like drop. Other performances it’s more kind of, it’s already kind of resigned and it’s a little bit more subdued and it kind of creeps back into it. I love the flexibility there and the endless ways of interpreting that. Yeah. That returned.[00:24:00]Yeah. Evan Goldfine:So did you become acquainted with the piece from that three hour long four piano? Erik Hall:There was that recording. Yes. That was the first one I heard. And then the other recording that, that I really, I’ve listened to a lot and love is the, it’s pianist Ivo Janssen is his name. And it’s him with, they’re called Amsterdam Mallet Collective. And it’s from the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam. It was like, mid -2000s, or? Yeah, I think I listened to that one. Yeah, 2005 or so. Yeah, I love that one, too. So between those two recordings, I kind of figured out how and where I wanted mine to fit in. Evan Goldfine:Yeah, and you’ve come to re -record the album with a whole other ensemble. So how did that come about? What’s happening with all of that? and that’s coming out in April for everybody. Erik Hall:Yeah, it’s just been kind of one[00:25:00]step after the other. I put out my solo rendition, and at that time, there was a, the New York Times wrote about it, there was a piece about Simeon ten Holt that included me and my new record. Meanwhile in New York, Andrew Cyr, who is the artistic director of Metropolis Ensemble, I found out about it and got in touch about adapting the piece for a large ensemble outdoor performance at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, with Sandbox Percussion and Metropolis Ensemble and, Sandbox Percussion’s summer seminar that they do at the New School, which includes like 30 percussion students from around the country. So suddenly there was this invitation to arrange a sonata for 50 or so musicians. including mallet percussion, woodwinds,[00:26:00]strings, and for that concert we had, I was playing Fender Rhodes, we had a Wurlitzer, and we had two other synthesizers as well, so, and we did this in 2004,, outside, and it was, epic and beautiful, and we decided quickly that we needed to take that project into the studio, so we, we, we really kind of honed it from there, it’s not 50 people on this record, it’s more like, I think it was about a dozen or, I can’t even remember offhand, but it’s 12 or so people. I’m just playing the piano, two hands. It’s much more like an acoustic organic performance with this large ensemble, kind of chamber ensemble approach. And, it was, it’s just been a total dream. Being able to be a part of a project like that and just a recording like that, it’s truly surreal. I listen back to it and I[00:27:00]can’t believe that I get to be a part of it. It’s insane. Evan Goldfine:So there were new orchestrations composed based upon the harmonies and, and the notes that were there. Erik Hall:Yeah, yeah. And that was, that process was deep in and of itself, just choosing the ways in which we can, extract and kind of reframe each of these lines. Early in the process, I was working with Johnny Allen from Sandbox Percussion and a musician composer in New York, Ben Wallace, who helped us create this kind of map of the whole piece. And he kind of was able to extract... the original piano score is, is the single, it’s like the grand staff plus an additional one or two staves of optional music, and then there’s sometimes there’s an additional bottom staff.[00:28:00]Ben took these and he basically blew it up into this array maybe like 16 different optional lines that could be played that were each very, very simple. When you put them all together, you get the full picture. And we use that as kind of like a starting point to map out the piece for the different instruments. David Leon is a sax and winds player and composer in New York as well. Incredible musician and he really spearheaded the wind arrangement and did absolutely beautiful work. As for the strings, I took care of mapping out the strings and deciding what to have them do for this new album. and kept it really relatively simple and and just really capitalized on the ability to have sustained tones yeah and taking[00:29:00]a little bit of a liberty because that’s really one area where the score... Evan Goldfine:It’s pretty spare, right? Erik Hall:Yeah, and there’s no whole notes in the score, and, we’re having the violins just really like holding these almost like the way you would sit down at a synth synthesizer and play like a lush pad, it’s like, that’s what our strings are doing, but everything is adhering to the notes on the page. And so it’s, it was a really cool, really fun process of making all those decisions. Evan Goldfine:I’m getting to imagine it now because with a sandbox percussion group, you were going to be hearing a lot of those percussive notes on top of these smeary strings underneath with those harmonies. It’s gonna be great. Yeah. So, what could be next? I mean, would you consider recording Bach? Like, I’ve found that some of the adaptations of Bach have been, most are not successful in this sort of way. Could[00:30:00]you imagine one that could be successful in your aesthetic? Erik Hall:I have tried to, honestly, and... Evan Goldfine:What pieces were you, were you thinking about? Erik Hall:Well, each time I even start to think about it, I just... I don’t know that I actually have the chops as a player to do it at this stage in my life. I could see about putting in the time and, I don’t know. It’s funny because when Music for 18 Musicians came out, there were, in the discussion around the release of that record, there were absolutely some, at least a couple, comparisons to Switched-On Bach, right. And kind of thinking about it as like the synth version. I’m very deliberate about steering away from that[00:31:00]approach. To me, this is a kind of modern palette and production and, some of these electronic sounds are, are novel to this canon. But, the last thing I want to do is make something that’s distracting in that way. And, and that’s any sort of. gimmick. Yeah. Or novelty. Yeah. I want it to be just a new framing of how this music can come to life. I don’t know what Bach could or would do, and I am open to all ideas. So, your ideas, your listeners’ ideas, I want, I want to hear them. I’ll start thinking. Evan Goldfine:All right, everyone write in to me, and we’ll forward over to Erik, what you think. what kind of pieces will be. Switched on Bach for those people who don’t know this is a very hard album to find online. It’s not on any of the streaming services.[00:32:00] It was from the 1970s by a performer named Wendy Carlos, who adapted a number of short Bach pieces, the most popular ones for synth and synthetic organ. Well, synthesize an organ sort of, and some of the pieces are more successful than others. The ones that sound more like, I think overly synthy are probably the least successful, and they sound very much of their time and the other ones that are more organ-ish. I think it sounds fine, but I’ve never really connected with that record. Erik Hall:Yeah. And, don’t get me wrong. I think that record is an important piece of modern music history, but not one that I’m trying to emulate. Evan Goldfine:Yeah. So this one, this question came from my son, cause I told him we were talking today, but he said, if Bach had an overdubbing machine. or pro tools what might he have done with it with his aesthetic[00:33:00]with the tools that you have. Erik Hall:I mean, it would be probably the most radical music we can imagine. I would love to, to hear what, what he would have done with the tools that we have. I mean, I think that we have this tendency to assume that the artists. of the past were kind of like very stoic in their, in the relative limitations that they were working within. This comes up a lot with regard to just studio recording, and ear and microphones and computers. I would like to think that If the tools that we have now were available then, I mean, it would have only been a good thing. They would have been making just some of the raddest stuff we can imagine. Evan Goldfine:Yeah. Well, this has been great.[00:34:00]I’d love to ask you for a couple, record recommendations. What are some albums, I guess in the minimalist canon or anything else that come to mind that you would share for people to understand your music and your sensibility. Erik Hall:Sure, well, let’s think here. Two very different vibes. Great. There’s, there’s this, piece that I actually know very little about. I’m not very well equipped to actually speak on it, but, composer by the name of Dennis Johnson. It’s a piece called November. It exists in a couple different places online. There’s this one version on Bandcamp that’s actually kind of recent, I think. It is dark, it’s slow, and it’s hours long. I love it, but it’s like, it’s when you kind of want to, like, get a[00:35:00]little bit down and stay down. It’s phenomenal. Evan Goldfine:You listen to it on a walk? Are you, are you going to sleep? Are you having a glass of wine? What, what do you use it for? Erik Hall:I’ll put it on at home when I’m, when I’m moving around the house, doing different things, but I’m not trying to be energized. It’s very mellow, very, very beautiful and kind of dark. So not for everybody, but something to check out on the other side of the spectrum is a record that came out a couple of years ago by Oren Ambarci, and it’s on Drag City. It’s called Shebang. Okay. It is kind of a weird cross between free improvisation and subtly manipulated electronic music. It’s kind of a collaborative record. There’s different players that contributed remotely. He’s playing electric guitar.[00:36:00]I don’t remember the name of the drummer, but the drumming is incredible. Jim O’Rourke contributed some synthesizer and piano. It’s this just like pure, it’s just pure energy. It’s very rhythmic. It’s about a half hour long, it’s continuous, and just really cool, really energetic. I put that on when I want to feel the opposite of the way that November makes me feel. Evan Goldfine:What about one in the middle? Do you have a recommendation for your everyday, less energized, but maybe less catatonic? Erik Hall:This is, how this is the most difficult question to answer, like what’s your favorite music? Evan Goldfine:Of course, oh no, yeah, and it’s because what are you leaving out, right? Erik Hall:Yeah, exactly. The answer to this question could never be comprehensive, and[00:37:00]oftentimes it’s not even accurate, because you suddenly can’t remember what you even like. Evan Goldfine:Of course, and you don’t want to say Revolver, and you don’t want to say, Aja, and you don’t want to say, Tchaikovsky’s Sixth Symphony, because there’s this thing where, if you like esoteric music,, you don’t want to be too esoteric, there’s a whole bunch of layers here, all that I’m trying to do with my project, And I think my listeners is to be exposed to new and interesting things that are great, that they might not have had. So this doesn’t necessarily have to be Erik Hall’s favorite, three albums of all time, but just, what, what other album would you recommend for people that they might not know? Erik Hall:Yeah, well, so one that I always come back to that I just love, that I’m kind of a sucker for, is Chilly Gonzales Solo Piano. This is a, relatively contemporary record, of just like these wonderful little etudes that, very[00:38:00]much kind of indebted to Satie, but clearly modern,, very beautiful. There’s already solo piano two and three. I don’t know three very well. Two is also great, but I would start obviously with the first one,   Chilly Gonzales Solo Piano. Evan Goldfine:Excellent. Erik Hall:It was actually put on, like I first heard it when I was playing in a band called Wild Belle. And we’re about to sound check at a music festival in Mexico. We’re on this big stage and it was like early in the day. There was no audience yet present. And we were setting up and to test the PA, the front of house engineer put on this record, Solo Piano by Chilly Gonzales. And we’re outside in this almost kind of rain forest setting. It was in this national park, crazy, beautiful, surreal day. And we’re out on this giant stage and there’s this lovely, felted,[00:39:00]solo piano record playing. And it just was the perfect contrast to where we were and what we were doing. And it’s just always stuck with me and then, I ended up just fully adopting that record. I love it. Evan Goldfine:That is such a great way to encounter interesting art. It’s when you’re not expecting to get knocked over by anything, and it’s just the right place at the right time that it happens for all of us. It’s just an amazing thing. I had a sound check record. This is not one of my top three records, but one that I’ve listened to a lot. I was at a soundcheck at, not a soundcheck. I, it was before the act was coming out. It was like the, just, in the club. There was an album called Tiny Resisters by a bassist named Todd Sickafoose. Which is like this nonet and it was like this really cool, like grooving, like post Mingus thing going on, but it was like really rock oriented also, but like great brass and[00:40:00]I was like, this is great and like it kind of almost like put me off center for whatever kind of, angular guitar concert I was going to at that point, but and then I got that record and I’ve listened to it like 20 times since then, but it’s great to be put in those moments. So I’m going to link to all of these records that we talk about in the show notes so people can click on them on youtube and apple music and spotify. Great. Well Erik this has been great check out Erik’s website for tour dates is it on there Yeah. Yep. Erik Hall:Erikhall.net. Evan Goldfine:Great. And that’s with a K. And, I will be at the show in April, and at the New School in New York and I’m very excited. and it’s free. So go RSVP. It’s crazy that this is going to be a free show. There’s no reason to not go. So, go check it out. Erik, thank you again for your time today. Thank you so much, Evan. It’s really been fun, and I appreciate the invitation. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit yearofbach.substack.com [https://yearofbach.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]

Violist and author Edward Klorman on Bach's Cello Suites

Violist and Author Edward Klorman discusses his new book, Bach: The Cello Suites, and adds commentary at the keyboard. Edward's website: http://Edwardklorman.com/ [http://Edwardklorman.com/] A Year of Bach Substack: https://yearofbach.substack.com [https://yearofbach.substack.com] This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit yearofbach.substack.com [https://yearofbach.substack.com?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_1]