Copy Teaching the future and history of Bach interpretation 2 Oct

Teaching the history and future of Bach interpretation at Codarts (concept)

As this text is all about quality of sound, the reader is kindly requested to listen to the music examples with good  loudspeakers or good earphones, not with low quality headphones or loudspeakers of,  for instance, a tablet, laptop or smartphone.  It will be no surprise that students tend to appreciate the new viewpoint of wildness more than The Art of Doing Nothing. Actually, I am thinking about how to use this positive energy in the best way. First of all, I do not expect students to follow my path from Bach to Messiaen and Coltrane; it is far too personal. However, I shall let them think about titles with which Bach explicitly referred to dance, such as Allemande; Courante; Sarabande; Gavotte; Air; Minuet and Gigue. In addition, this statement by Cecil Taylor:  "Well, you know, I think Western musicians, fine art musicians, what they call fine art musicians--European fine art--they're the only ones who don't dance. Every other--of course these certain stupid Americans--but you'll find in all other cultures, like third world cultures, musicians dance. What they don't understand is when you--when you are playing, whether you know it or not, you're dancing. I always got great enjoyment watching great musicians dance when they play. I mean, to watch Elvin Jones or Art Blakey. Horace Silver, Ellington had a way--and Billie Holiday--those movements. Or Betty Carter." My second conclusion will be that the course cannot be carried by a single person; there should be a team of teachers. In this team different points of view should represent the variety of Bach interpretation over the years, decades and even centuries. Ideally, all instruments and the voice should be covered, including instruments that Bach did not know. Also the way jazz and pop musicians look at Bach. At the end of the course, being well informed, the student will give his or her own live interpretation of a piece by Bach regarding the future, documented in a digital environment (possibly related to Jaco van den Dool's lectorate Blended learning). Thirdly, the project will probably also be too big to be defined from beginning to end already. However, I have a clear idea about how to start: the well-known issue of expressions/moods associated with tonalities; in addition how to relate this to the body language of performing. One of the above mentioned video's matches this aspect: Depth and nobleness of c minor: Fantasia BWV 562 The key of c minor is an interesting issue regarding tendencies in historically informed performance practice and other traditions, which are more based on the heritage of the 19th century. Depending on background, students and teachers may find depth and nobleness in a certain performance misinterpreted and moving towards pompousness, while vice versa a deliberately light and transparent interpretation may sound thin and meaningless to others. Or: suppose a student wants to adapt body language (and possibly clothes) to (supposed?) needs of contemporary visual media. What would appear to be a grotesque distortion of the quality of c minor to some may be regarded as a valuable tool for modern communication by others. The idea is to inform students as much as possible and let them make their own choice at the end.  Knowing about moods associated with tonalities as described in 18th century sources will only be the first level of information. With all respect to their authors we have to realise that they were basically meant for serious, well-to-do amateurs, not for professionals, let alone that they could match the richness of Bach's universum. Besides, authors from the 18th century did not have the habit of describing emotions in detail, contrary to art and literature from the 19th century up to the present. However, this  does not mean that musicians in the 18th century where unaware of the broad spectrum of human emotions. Therefore, it is recommendable not only to know about the basic moods of the tonalities, but also to refine them depending on the piece. This is where imagination can be very helpful, for instance: Intimate, quiet expectation in a chorale for the Advent: (under construction)  (to be continued) Meanwhile I started to publish instructional organ video's on YouTube that demonstrate a profound and healthy way of practising: first left hand, right hand and pedal separately, then left with pedal, right with pedal, left and right together and finally all three together. This is much in line with my former art of playing with relaxed precision, but with more reference to dance and body language than before. The lessons are also meant to counterbalance the aspect of wildness, because that only works when  supported by good technique. On line organ lessons - Kommst du nun, Jesu BWV 650 (1) On line organ lessons - Kommst du nun, Jesu BWV 650 (2)

Copy JSB played by WT 2 October 2016

The art of doing nothing

Inspired by observations of Bach’s contemporaries on his organ playing I minimised my movements as a classical organist in the past almost forty years. I called this The art of doing nothing or The art of playing with relaxed precision. In addition, The art of doing nothing has always been a metaphor for finding silence within myself. The following video, recorded in 2007, is a good example of this art:

J.S. Bach - Kommst du nun, Jesu, vom Himmel herunter BWV 650

or, not on a real organ, but with the digitalised sound of Hauptwerk:

J.S. Bach - Sonata in G major BWV 530, first movement

(other examples can be found here: Organ Works J.S. Bach - before the summer of 2016)

Or regarding Messiaen:

Olivier Messiaen - Les deux murailles d'eau

During these forty years I also built up my own musical language for improvisation and composition. Among other things, this resulted in becoming a pianist of the avant-garde jazz trio Turnstone: 

Turnstone: The Waiting Traveller

Depth and nobleness of c minor: Fantasia BWV 562

Joyful elegance of G major: Kommst du nun, Jesu, vom Himmel herunter BWV 650 (under construction)

Purity and innocence of F major: Herr Jesu Christ dich zu wend BWV 632 (under construction)

"Wild rock" version of Prelude and Fugue in a minor BWV 543

The term "the art of doing nothing" is meant as a tantalising paradox with multiple meanings to stimulate the mind. Therefore it can be very misleading and the truth is in fact that it is about the military —or even more than military— discipline, needed to play any music instrument on a highly sophisticated level. Seen in that light I consider my past forty years of extreme discipline as something in need of a next step. In the summer of 2016 I realised that this next step would consist of replacing military discipline by female sensuality, represented for me as a catholic by Maria. This implies integrating the physical sensation of dance into my Bach interpretation. This is so personal that I could only reach that point through my own music. At first this manifested itself in an extravagant way in an improvisation for piano:

Piano Music 18.8.2016

Piano Music 22.9.2016 No 2 

This does not mean that I disapprove of exuberant body language now; it is just an extra tool to create a maximum of variety, which will no doubt be used in future performances. 

A full evening project as an artistic result: The Enchanted Desert

To quote Aristotle: “Through discipline comes freedom”. Or in more poetic terms: forty years of dwelling in the desert of strictness to reach the enchanted desert of imagination. This relates to the title of a full evening project of mine for organ, flute, percussion and with dance and performance:

The Enchanted Desert

The Enchanted Desert was premiered in the Der Aa-kerk in Groningen on 30th June 2016.

Finding a 21st century kind of authenticity in new and unexpected ways

Broadly speaking, Bach interpretation from 1829 (the year of the Mattheus Passion’s revival by Mendelssohn) till the first and larger part of the 20th century may be considered as romantically subjective. On the contrary, historically informed performance practice in the latter part of the 20th century up to the present can be regarded as objective, or at least as aiming at objectivity. My personal authenticity regarding Bach is a mix of objectivity and subjectivity: firmly rooted in the historically informed performance practice through my education, but flourishing with the help of the 21st century practice of my own compositions and improvisations. If A represents romantic subjectivity and B historically informed performance practice, I do not want to go from B back to A, but forward to C, representing the present and the future. 

Sorrow and anxiety of f minor:  Prelude and fugue in f-minor BWV 543 (under construction)

Spiritual grandeur and the notion of music as a healing force

I do not pretend to know what Claudio Arrau exactly meant with "spiritual grandeur", but considering the importance of Beethoven (who wanted to heal people with his music) in his life I understand it as a reference to the healing force of music, which I experienced very intensely at crucial moments in my life. If one believes in deeper meanings of encounters with certain persons, then there must have been such value in René van Commenée's bringing Mike Garson (who later became our mutual friend)  and me together in 2006. Mike's goal in life is to present music as a healing force to people.

Speaking of music as a healing force brings me also to Nobel Prize winner Albert Schweitzer, doctor, organist and Bach biographer, whose house in the Alsace I visited in 1985. Regarding music as a healing force in Bach interpretation as the ultimate authenticity...Not only Albert Schweitzer, but also Albert Ayler, one of the other free jazz heroes of my youth. A famous album of his was "Music is the Healing Force of the Universe". Not to mention Cecil Taylor, a father figure to many avant-garde jazz pianists (read what he said about dancing musicians in Teaching the history and future of Bach interpretation)

Conclusion: closing the circle

A circle is being closed now, because Bach, Messiaen and Coltrane were my main motivation to enter the conservatory as a teenager, after falling in love with the organ through Rudi van Straten's lessons. It is because of the overall hymnal character of their music and the organ being simply the most appropriate instrument to receive and transmit their message. To realise that is like rediscovering a lost innocence of youth. A good memory which I have of my entrance exam in 1976 is Jan Welmer's smile when he asked me about free jazz, which I (among other things) had mentioned as my favourite music. He must have liked that out-of-the-box thinking.

I have followed a difficult and unusual path to find a simple truth: music as a healing force for both listeners and performers. Rudi van Straten closes the circle for another reason: as the founder of Stichting Klinkend Erfgoed Nederland he promotes the use of historical organs, bells and carillons among all members of society. After my two crises the high quality digitalised organ sounds of Hauptwerk were of great value to recover at home. But the live experience of playing real instruments can not be replaced in this respect, as Rudi keeps saying as a good teacher. 

Copy inhoud J.S. Bach played by Willem Tanke 8 september 2016

A Different Kind Of Authenticity

Relating Bach to avant-garde jazz in the enchanted desert of imagination Inspired by observations of Bach’s contemporaries on his organ playing I minimised my movements as a classical organist in the past almost forty years. I called this The art of doing nothing or The art of playing with relaxed precision. The following video, recorded in 2013, is a perfect example of this art: J.S. Bach - Sonata in G major BWV 530, first movement During these forty years I also built up my own musical language for improvisation and composition. In 2016, this resulted in becoming an avant-garde jazz pianist and using much larger movements than before, to increase intensity and fully relate my body language to the expression of the music. This can be observed here:   Piano Music 18.8.2016 This —admittedly— extreme new body language now influences my way of playing the organ and in particular Bach. I would like to feel that my Bach interpretation and the avant-garde jazz which I play are connected through freedom and fluency of movements. It would be a very unorthodox, but in a way also very authentic response to titles which Bach used in order to refer to dance, such as Allemande; Courante; Sarabande; Gavotte; Air; Minuet and Gigue. It is not my intention to imitate (very codified) baroque dance gestures, but to feel the spirit of dance in the movements I make. As a result I started my Bach interpretation all over again (first the hands and pedal separately, then in all combinations) and share my experience on line, for instance in these examples: Willem Tanke's on line organ lessons - Kommst du nun, Jesu BWV 650 (1) Willem Tanke's on line organ lessons - Kommst du nun, Jesu BWV 650 (2) To quote Aristotle: “Through discipline comes freedom”. Or in more poetic terms: forty years of dwelling in the desert of strictness to reach the enchanted desert of imagination. This now relates to the title of a full evening project of mine for organ, flute, percussion and with dance and performance, which was premiered in the Der Aa-kerk in Groningen on 30th June 2016:  The Enchanted Desert A new kind of subjectivity  Broadly speaking, Bach interpretation from 1829 (the year of the Mattheus Passion’s revival by Mendelssohn) till the first and larger part of the 20th century can be considered as romantically subjective. On the contrary, historically informed performance practice in the latter part of the 20th century up to the present can be regarded as objective, or at least as aiming at objectivity. My authenticity is a mix of objectivity and subjectivity: firmly rooted in historically informed performance practice through my education, but seen through a personal and subjective filter: the 21st century practice of my own compositions and improvisations. If A represents romantic subjectivity and B historically informed performance practice, I do not want to go from B back to A, but forward to C, representing the present and the future.

Old text News update website August 2016

• The first performance of The Enchanted Desert, for organ, flute, percussion and with dance and performance, was very well received. Click here to watch a selection of passages and read what it is about. Never before my music has been presented so completely, as a full evening program. This liberated me from counter-productive energy due to what I felt as lack of recognition during many years. When I started to play my own music on the organ in the ‘90s I was told to restrict myself to Bach, Messiaen and 20th century avant-garde composers; repertoire which by that time had given me a solid reputation. About 2000 I began to practise the piano seriously, however, not in a traditional way but by making my own exercises for improvisation and composition. Again I was told to stop this and return to my roots as an organist. This time I took it more seriously, as the criticism came from musicians that I used to respected for their own achievements. And now in the summer of 2016 I even leave the classical roots for what they are and call myself an avant-garde pianist, as I feel related to that wide range of music, in which improvisation plays an important role. It becomes predictable: “you should not call yourself an avant-garde pianist without having a proper jazz education”. But that does not affect me any longer, it is just a matter of "take it or leave it".

A very positive aspect for musicians nowadays is that everyone can make audio and video recordings and publish them on YouTube, SoundCloud, Vimeo etc. A large part of the response they get will be objective, from people all over the world without any relation to them. And if the achievement is worthwhile there will always be something to confirm that. Even better: good music published on Internet can not be completely denied, it will be there forever and prove itself in due time. How many talented but unfortunate musicians in the past would not have embraced this possibility? But I am grateful that Jan Welmers crossed my path, first as a teacher and then as a friend. He always let me completely free, while being very critical and stimulating at the same time, not bothered at all by what one is supposed to do according to traditions. That is called good fortune. Eventually the piano may even be closer to me than the organ because the sound is there immediately and allows you to be entirely intuitive in your improvising. With the organ there is always a small delay because you have to reflect on the stops you choose. There is also a physical relief. In the past forty years I minimised my movements as an organist, based on observations by contemporaries of Bach that he was able to get a maximum of expression with a minimum of movements. As a pianist I am no longer bothered by that classical ideal and let myself go like some of the great, revolutionary jazz pianists, such as Cecil Taylor. What a physical excitement that gives. As if using a battery that has been charged during a period of forty years. 

I created a new play list on YouTube: Instructional Videos for Codarts - University for the Arts, Rotterdam. It shows my pedagogical work as a classical organist on the one hand and an avant-garde jazz pianist on the other. The description is: “Codarts offers you the depth of tradition and the magic of innovation, challenging you to become the original musician that makes the difference. For talented, hard-working students with a touch for adventure Codarts is the place to be”. That is also good fortune, to work at Codarts, with its departments for classical music, world music, jazz and pop, in a lively city that has a reputation for hard-working inhabitants and innovation.

A Different Kind of Authenticity

A Different Kind Of Authenticity

The interpretation of compositions by J.S. Bach is a lifelong learning project for many musicians: one can always improve. From when I was a student (1977-1986), I based my ideal of playing the organ on observations on Bach's organ playing made by contemporaries of his. These observations all point in the same direction: that Bach was able to achieve a maximum of expression with a minimum of movements of hands and feet. Achieving more by doing less became a guideline for my daily practice, supported by a term which at the time was currently used in the historically informed music practice: “vernehmendes Hören”, which translates as “observational listening”.  Evidently, my Bach interpretation has been largely influenced by the early music movement, but actually I am looking for Bach performances beyond the historically informed performance debate. My point of view is based on the past but heads for the future, by relating to other music traditions on the one hand and my own improvisations and compositions on the other. Regarding these other traditions, I intend to let organ pipes sound like, for instance, not only Marcel Ponseele's oboe, but also Hariprasad Chaurasia's bansuri, with a similar natural breathing, fluency and detailed expression. Playing Bach with the technique that I use for improvising and performing my compositions brings me nearer to the goal.  I use to practise on a "Hauptwerk"-console with the digitalised sound of historical instruments in Arlesheim and Tholen. It has a very precise and sensitive action and allows for a great refinement of toucher. In this respect, it may be compared to the clavichord, the home instruments of many 18th century organists, including Bach himself.  As for authenticity, we simply have to admit that we do not know how Bach's music sounded in the days when it was created. No one can pretend to know the truth and in this respect a certain modesty is needed. Moreover, there is not one single truth as there is also not one meaning to the word authenticity. Bach's music crosses so many borders that, for instance, a tune of his whistled by an inhabitant of a South American village who heard it on his mobile phone may have authenticity and truth in its own right. In line with the historically informed music practice I have been searching for a maximum of objectivity in my Bach interpretation in the past forty years. Unfortunately however, with myself and others, I saw this historically informed practice too often end up in a fruitless debate on what is supposedly right or wrong. Developing my own music and hereby relating to other music traditions stimulated me to make a next step and transform objectivity into subjectivity. Contrary to supposedly right or wrong my focus now lies on what feels good.  An example of relating Bach's music to non-Western music and my own improvisations and compositions is Birds, Drums and Signals ( part of The Enchanted Desert). It is based on improvisations on a rhythmical pattern with a 14/16 time signature. These improvisations were originally meant as exercises to develop right and left hand independence and gradually crystallised into a composition. During this process I was inspired by the childlike, sincere joy of African musicians I played with as an organist of the Scots International Church in Rotterdam from 1998 till 2000. At the premiere of The Enchanted Desert (30th June, 2016), I succeeded in applying this kind of joy to the performance of Birds, Drums and Signals. It was an inspiring experience that served to create a breakthrough in my Bach interpretation; from then on I clearly decided to play his trio sonatas and other similar works with the same naive joy as Birds, Drums and Signals.  N.B. this decision implies activity on the level of craftsmanship, artistry and spirituality. These are levels that I discern regarding my music practice in general. They may be further investigated in a possible artistic doctoral research, in which the "new" way of playing the six sonatas is compared to the "old" way, as published on YouTube between   September 2013 and August 2014. Besides technical skills acquired over the years, this joy is essential to obtain the seemingly effortless grace that is so often associated with 18th century music of, for instance, Bach, Scarlatti, Haydn and Mozart. in its turn this grace relates to what I used to call the art of doing nothing in 2003 and later referred to as the art of playing with relaxed precision.  In short: Playing with African musicians → my own music (Birds, Drums and Signals) → Bach sonatas  The first piece to play in the new manner was the third movement of the sonata in d minor: Aspects of craftsmanship that are already demonstrated in the old version are:   - keeping the fingers as much as possible in contact with the keys of the keyboard for optimum control of toucher -  Abbreviations "Arlesheim" : recorded with the digitalized sound of the Silbermann-organ in Arlesheim (1761) "Tholen" : recorded with the digitalized sound of the Van Dam-organ in Tholen (1832) Noordwolde: played at the Freytag-organ in Noordwolde (1803)

Diverse teksten voor website e.d. ter revisie

Website: News July 2016

• The first performance of The Enchanted Desert, for organ, flute, percussion and with dance and performance, was very well received. Click here to watch a selection of passages and read what it is about. Never before my music has been presented so completely, as a full evening program. This liberated me from counter-productive energy due to what I felt as lack of recognition during many years. When I started to play my own music on the organ in the ‘90s I was told to restrict myself to Bach, Messiaen and 20th century avant-garde composers; repertoire which by that time had given me a solid reputation. About 2000 I began to practise the piano seriously, however, not in a traditional way but by making my own exercises for improvisation and composition. Again I was told to stop this and return to my roots as an organist. This time I took it more seriously, as the criticism came from musicians that I used to respected for their own achievements. And now in the summer of 2016 I even leave the classical roots for what they are and call myself an avant-garde pianist, as I feel related to that wide range of music, in which improvisation plays an important role. It becomes predictable: “you should not call yourself an avant-garde pianist without having a proper jazz education”. But that does not affect me any longer, it is just a matter of "take it or leave it".

A very positive aspect for musicians nowadays is that everyone can make audio and video recordings and publish them on YouTube, SoundCloud, Vimeo etc. A large part of the response they get will be objective, from people all over the world without any relation to them. And if the achievement is worthwhile there will always be something to confirm that. Even better: good music published on Internet can not be completely denied, it will be there forever and prove itself in due time. How many talented but unfortunate musicians in the past would not have embraced this possibility? But I am grateful that Jan Welmers crossed my path, first as a teacher and then as a friend. He always let me completely free, while being very critical and stimulating at the same time, not bothered at all by what one is supposed to do according to traditions. That is called good fortune. Eventually the piano may even be closer to me than the organ because the sound is there immediately and allows you to be entirely intuitive in your improvising. With the organ there is always a small delay because you have to reflect on the stops you choose. There is also a physical relief. In the past forty years I minimised my movements as an organist, based on observations by contemporaries of Bach that he was able to get a maximum of expression with a minimum of movements. As a pianist I am no longer bothered by that classical ideal and let myself go like some of the great, revolutionary jazz pianists, such as Cecil Taylor. What a physical excitement that gives. As if using a battery that has been charged during a period of forty years. 

I created a new play list on YouTube: Instructional Videos for Codarts - University for the Arts, Rotterdam. It shows my pedagogical work as a classical organist on the one hand and an avant-garde jazz pianist on the other. The description is: “Codarts offers you the depth of tradition and the magic of innovation, challenging you to become the original musician that makes the difference. For talented, hard-working students with a touch for adventure Codarts is the place to be”. That is also good fortune, to work at Codarts, with its departments for classical music, world music, jazz and pop, in a lively city that has a reputation for hard-working inhabitants and innovation. 

During almost forty years I have been working on a classical ideal of organ playing: to play with as little movements as possible, like Bach according to some of his contemporaries. I called that The art of doing nothing or The art of playing with relaxed precision. I recorded the complete organ works by Messiaen, Reger’s monumental op. 73 and many pieces by Bach in that spirit. It looks as follows:

In the summer of 2016 I wanted to leave The art of doing nothing behind me and unleash the potential of a temperament only partially manifested up to that moment. Determined to create some kind of breakthrough, I took resource to an unconventional method: to play the piano intensely (only my own exercises) on a pure emotional level, without bothering about good technique and with no restrictions regarding movements. This resulted in a body language that differed very much from what I was used to and apparently (seemingly?) not suited Western classical music at all. Video-recordings show more resemblance with, for instance, jazz and Indian classical musicians. I felt as if my temperament had been liberated, for the benefit of not only my own improvisations and compositions bit also classical organ pieces. Moreover, I