Bach Goldberg Variations – Tianqi Du – Naïve
J.S. Bach: Concertos BWV 1052, 1054-1056 – Tianqi DU, piano; Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, dir. J. Bloxham – Naïve V7957 – 66 min. – ****1/2
Bach Goldberg Variations – Tianqi Du
Du recorded the great Goldberg Variations, BWV 988, in late 2018 and with the album appearing in 2022. I wanted to use his debut album (Naïve V 7566) as a springboard toward understanding his newest album, collaborating with the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields performing four of Bach’s keyboard concertos.
His debut album I’d wager a triumph. The Steinway piano sound is good; our closeness to the instrument permits us to hear the nuances of performance in a very good way, showcasing the pianist’s gifts with articulation. I applaud the engineers of that album for getting us that close without turning the album dry.
Interestingly, Du does sometimes vocalize, but not to the degree of Gould. He takes repeats in which he introduces a lot of ornamentation. It’s executed well, beautifully, even, in some unexpected ways. The way he varies the voices within the music with dynamics and articulation is consistently well done. Technically-gifted players who can couple that ability with elevating the music’s affect on us should be among our most cherished.
Du seems to be positioning himself as a Bach specialist on piano. The most famous might be Glenn Gould, but there are others, even if they don’t exclusively perform Bach: Angela Hewitt, Jeremy Denk, Vladimir Feltsman, David Frey, and Zhu Xiao-mei. As someone who subscribes to the artistic aims of the historical performance movement, I welcome performances of Baroque music on modern instruments, but with the caveat that artists explore the benefits of the “new” instruments and how they can propel the appreciation of the music forward.
The musicians I listed above all have some stylistic qualities that we might be able to use to help differentiate their approach. My exploration when listening to Du’s performance of the Goldberg Variations was to find his defining style as a pianist. First, this album presents a dry style of playing, without heavy use of pedal. There is often space between the notes, especially in the faster variations; he does let the notes “touch” one another (legato) in such as track 16/Variation 15. The style however does not fall into what I might consider “romantic” territory.
I was unsure of his interpretation of the Variation 16’s overture. The style is there, but the tempo perhaps is too slow; the repeat takes the texture in a different direction. While this may not be one of my favorite tracks from his Goldberg recording, it showcases Du’s talent with articulation which seems perfectly matched on the Steinway-D he uses for the recording. The 20th variation sees this talent in full force. His playing is amazingly clean and the dynamics he employs we can feel in Bach’s writing even if he wasn’t using any indication for them. I’d therefore say Du does well to bring out the inherent dynamic quality of Bach’s writing, making a strong case for using the modern piano.
If you haven’t heard the 2-CD set of his Goldberg recording, I’d seek it out. As a debut recording it is especially well-done. It provided me what I needed to understand his artistic point of view. It may be unfair to consider the Goldberg Variations an appetizer, but that’s how it played out in helping me understand this artist in the context of his new recording.
Bach Keyboard Concertos – Tianqi Du, Academy of St. Martin-in-the-Fields, dir. J. Bloxham
Du studied piano in China before coming to the New England Conservatory. The liner notes present background showcasing Du’s thoughts about performance as an interview, which also provides adequate background around the history of the works and Bach’s use for them as afternoon entertainment at a Leipzig coffeehouse. The pieces are viewed by historians as arrangements from other works, and the example provided is the concerto BWV 1054 which is a re-casting of Bach’s surviving violin concerto, BWV 1042 in E.
While details are not provided on the orchestra’s string players, the photo indicates a larger force than what has been typical in historically-informed performances (HIPP) of at least the last ten years, which have edged toward one player per part. The worry with a larger chamber orchestra may be losing the cutting power of a harpsichord through the texture. In this case, however, a modern piano has less difficulty being heard, even in the loudest passages.
In the first concerto, BWV 1052 in D minor, Du is up to his old tricks from the Goldberg Variations album mentioned above, by inserting ornamental goodies as the music unfolds. The option to insert a small cadenza before the last ritornello statement in the first movement warmed my heart. It’s a performance practice detail that is often brushed aside—even by HIPP groups. Du inserting that little flourish acknowledges his understanding of the historical appropriateness of giving the soloist an opportunity to show-off, even for a bit. For those looking for evidence, the written-out capriccio by Bach in the fifth Brandenburg Concerto is an adequate example that Bach likely took the opportunity to showcase his skills when he was in the soloist’s chair.
The other element I noticed coming through—speaking to Du’s style—is his clean and sharp articulation. While Gould was drawn to make space between his notes at least in part because he felt the compulsion to imitate the harpsichord’s sound, no matter the thinking behind it, I like that sound on piano. The style seems wholly appropriate in Bach’s faster movements, which oft are painted with many 16th notes. The slower movements I think are more challenging for pianists in terms of adopting an appropriate articulation. In the middle movement of the A major concerto, BWV 1055, Du’s interpretation I think is very intelligent: he doesn’t go out of his way to try and imitate a plucked harpsichord by letting the notes touch, but when needed, he inserts the space to render clean ornaments and when he needs to be more rhetorical with a phrase. It’s a solution that I think would be recognizable by Bach, at least, over playing the entire movement smoothly, as we might say, “Romantically.” Jonathan Bloxham is supportive with the chamber orchestra’s role in the slow movement as well, allowing adequate space between phrases, in support of their own articulation. I can’t help but see this as a nod to expectations brought from HIPP but aside from an alignment with historical practices, it goes far to serve the music well.
It may well position this recording as a clear alternative to other recordings of these works by piano and chamber orchestra.
As a comparison, all but BWV 1054 were recorded by András Schiff in 1979 with the English Chamber Orchestra. The balance in that recording for me is off, giving more limelight to the orchestra. Despite Schiff being another pianist praised for their approach with Bach, his touch for me, as evidenced by this older concerto recording, is too polite at times.
Du, by contrast, exercises more power through his fingers. Bloxham and the Naïve engineers have a far more appropriate balance of orchestra and keyboard. It’s most easily heard by comparing the openings of BWV 1055, this new recording with Schiff’s from ‘79.
The most challenging slow movement for me is hidden in the D major concerto, brooding as the theme is, with the thematic repetition in the left hand. Taken too slowly this piece gets killed. The harpsichord is not a sustaining instrument, it’s one of the reasons we can imagine why Bach ornaments the basic melodic line as he does. The piano can technically get away by stretching time. Du adopts the dangerous path by taking this movement slowly. The St. Martin’s ensemble follows his lead by not providing a silky smooth, sonorous curtain, but matching his style with air between phrases. While I think the tempo adopted here is too slow for my own taste, Du’s interpretation is not a disaster. It demonstrates the breadth at which Bach’s writing can survive.
Johann Sebastian Bach
Du comes out of his shell a bit in the opening of the disc’s final concerto, the F minor BWV 1056. The percussive effects of the piano are put into the fore in the opening ritornello. The clarity he projects—with us being able to hear both the left and right hand distinctly—is nice. This concerto is simpler compared to the others before it; for one, the musical themes are less developed. Du and the orchestra seem to be on the same page throughout the first movement, providing just the right amount of dramatic influences and variation in dynamics.
The Largo from this concerto is a favorite of mine; I once used it as an audition piece (arranged oddly enough for trombone and piano). Again, I think Du flirts with danger by taking this movement quite slowly. My own gauge is how you might play the melodic line by blowing air into an instrument (oboe, flute, etc., or even the trombone). You can only go so slowly, or else you’ll run out of air! His chosen tempo wouldn’t kill an oboist, but they’d have to be appreciably gifted with good lungs. Of course he’s a pianist and his instrument has enough sustaining power to make it work. Tempo aside, he sensitively presents the melody and the orchestra kneels well out of his way.
The Presto isn’t too fast, the tempo is appropriate for Bach’s filigree writing for the keyboard. Du presents all of those notes in fine time with delightfully strong articulation. The strength of his left hand is admirable as it often gets lost in the texture in some recordings and live performances.
For me, the discovery of Tianqi Du is a welcome one. My first suspicion is that having another Bach specialist on piano was crowding a specialty space but through the exploration of this new album alongside the re-audition of his debut album I am happy to report that Du has his own sound and style that makes him distinct from colleagues who arrived earlier on the scene. His album of the Goldberg Variations—gutsy starting with arguably Bach’s most difficult single work—clearly established his style, his level of attention to detail, and his intelligent reading of dynamic possibilities in Bach’s music.
The keyboard concertos seem less ambitious as material, but the collaboration required to work with a backup band provide another type of interpretive challenge. What I did detect was a common ground found between Bloxham and Du in these interpretations. The album is a success, I think, because of it.
In general, Bach’s fast movements, modeled after the Venetian concerto models by Albinoni, Marcello, and Vivaldi, highlight Du’s gifts in playing swiftly while also providing superb detail of every phrase, highlighted by Du’s articulation style. Whether I’ve been wooed by some HIPP interpretations of Bach’s slower movements that in some cases push the tempo, I’d liked to have heard at least the middle movements of the F minor and D major concertos played faster. That said, Du and Bloxham’s interpretive solutions supported the chosen tempos. They made them work and for some listeners this may be exactly the way they’d like to hear them.
—John Hendron
For more of John Hendron’s reviews, please visit his website at BiberFan.org
