Enhancing C. P. E. Bach Cello Concertos: An Exercise in Personal Authenticity

ELINOR’S BLOG:

Nick and I have been working on a new and important phase of our project. This is in relation to my upcoming recording of the three cello concertos by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach. The solo cello part as written in the score is often quite detailed, perhaps “complete”, but also very often, what is written there is more like the skeleton of a melody that needs to be completed by the performer’s enhanced expression. In order to begin the process of developing my own way of performing these works, I made an alternate version of the first solo section and presented it to Nick. My process consisted of:

• Looking a C. P. E. Bach’s orignal solo cello part and try to understand his gestures and his discourse.

• Analysis of C. P. E. Bach’s Sonatas with Various Reprises, Wq. 50, to gather ideas about how to transform and enhance melodies.

• Analysis and use of Franz Benda’s Six Sonatas for Violin and Continuo with embellished versions to gather ideas about florid gestures.

Nick helped me see where my version, my ornaments, departed too much from the original meaning provided by C. P. E. Bach. For example, I added a chromatic descent in one bar. The bar’s original meaning was a sighing gesture combined with a striving upwards gesture. My rising chromaticism brought a completely different affect to the passage, a gesture that typically means flirtation.

Overall, when my version was less convincing, it’s because I lost sight of the original.

Nick explained that this enhancing the expression of what’s already there means that I could therefore sing or speak the melody in a heightened way by asking myself, “how can I say that in an expressive way.” It’s not just adding fast and fancy extra notes (typical of today’s approach to “ornamentation”).

The A minor concerto opens with a melody that goes upwards, it’s a brave and strident leap, replete with “futile striving.” So my task now is to keep this in mind a bit more when I make my version.

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NICK’S BLOG:

Elinor is truly fearless when it comes to performing this music. She seeks an approach that remains true to the original while allowing her to express her own voice. So far, we have been experimenting openly, to find out where the limits lie. We looked at CPE Bach’s own ‘veraenderten Reprisen’ (variations of themes) in Wq 50 and we discussed the meaning of Empfindsamkeit (Sensibility) in the context of empirical philosophy from the 1700s (John Locke etc) and CPE’s keyboard fantasias. Assuming that (expensive, published) treatises on ‘ornamentation’ of the time were primarily directed at Kenner und Liebhaber (connoisseurs and amateurs), Elinor aims to realize an approach to performance that remains as true as possible to CPE’s own ultra-expressive approach. The many theories as to the identity of the original intended performer of the cello concertos (speculation centres on cellists from the Prussian court and Esterhazy palace) are peripheral to our aims. True, that cellist may have played the concertos exactly as written (this is unlikely, given that they must have been considered top-rate at the time), but Elinor wishes to play with the freedom, wisdom, and personal authenticity of an eighteenth-century virtuosa!

In terms of process, we discussed potential ‘meaning’ through gesture theory and semiotics: for instance, if a phrase leaps up and then descends through short two-note stepwise phrases, this can be understood to project an idea of striving and resignation, through sighs. Although such words are never adequate for translating musical meaning, they can help to explain what *not* to do in an expressive rendition. For instance, the Seufzer (sighs) of the original should be maintained. We also discussed phrase/verse rhythms and the need to place flourishes on the correct beats. The essential aim is not to recompose the original (which is, by the way, feasible given CPE’s own practice of variation), but to perform it in an enhanced and more expressive way that is authentic to Elinor. Adding ‘ornaments’ from treatises in the usual way would be much simpler. Elinor’s process is not easy! But it may well produce spectacular results….