No dia do aniversário de nosso compositor maior, Johann Sebastian Bach, trago para os senhores um dos últimos CDs de Rinaldo Alessandrini e seu Concerto italiano, e aqui estamos falando de um dos maiores especialistas em barroco da atualidade com seu conjunto de câmara. Me perdoem não ter traduzido o texto abaixo, o tempo urge, e estou fazendo esta postagem a toque de caixa, como sempre, aliás. Enfim, este texto abaixo foi retirado do booklet do CD, que segue em anexo ao arquivo de áudio, por sinal. De qualquer forma, existem diversos programas tradutores disponíveis na internet.
“The programme of this recording is composed of works that adopt the variation as the generating principle of the music. Our ‘variations’ on them modify the image and sonor- ity of the works, originally conceived for harpsichord, pedal harpsichord and organ. The varying styles of the original pieces make it possible to adapt them using different instru- mental scorings: violin and basso continuo in the case of the Aria variata alla maniera italiana BWV 989; a four-voice texture transcribed for four-part string ensemble in the Passacaglia BWV 582, the Canzona BWV 588, and a substantial portion of the Goldberg Variations BWV 988. Chamber formations of various sizes have been chosen for the canons and some of the other variations in the Goldberg cycle. What you will hear makes no pretence at orthodoxy. It is, rather, a divertissement, a subtle intellectual pleasure, which we experienced during the year it took for the project to come to gestation and realisation. In fact, I am not the first to have hit on the idea of arranging the Goldberg Variations for string ensemble: Dmitri Sitkovetsky made a version for string trio years ago, and Bernard Labadie one for string orchestra even before that. To transcribe the different sets of variations here for large forces would seem to be forcing their nature. For the style of the Goldberg Variations is already somewhat inhomogeneous (the other works on the programme are more regular in style) and sometimes highly idiomatic in keyboard terms. The series of canons is (almost) invariably in three parts. Some of the variations are in four parts, others in two. Others again are developed in polyphony with a varying number of voices. Hence, since we cannot adduce a specific reason to justify this project, the sole remaining argument is that of an intellectual and technical challenge.
The rest of the programme presented fewer problems of elaboration. The Passacaglia was transposed up a tone to the key of D minor, in which the strings sound well; similarly, the Aria BWV 989 was transposed down a tone. The Passacaglia, conceived in four parts (almost) throughout, adapts splendidly to an orchestral texture, which emphasises the dance character that, in the end, a passacaglia should always possess. The Canzona was given a literal transcription. The Aria reverts to what is presumed to have been its original Italian model, for violin and basso continuo. But it should not be thought that undertakings of this kind are unjustified modern ‘outrages’. On the contrary, we have many illustrious examples of the practice: beginning with the fugues Mozart selected from The Well-Tempered Clavier and transcribed for string quartet (K404a and K405), the list stretches right down to the present with the monumental transcriptions of Elgar, Stokowski, Schoenberg and Webern, to name only a few. And the first composer to embark on such an enterprise was Bach himself, who reused many of his and other composers’ works (the Mass in B minor, for instance, contains a great many revisions of earlier compositions; numerous movements from the Brandenburg Concertos are reworked in different ways in church cantatas; and his German version of Psalm 51 is adapted from the score of Pergolesi’s Stabat Mater), modifying their performing forces to produce spectacular transcriptions, of which the most striking is the transformation of the Prelude and Fugue in A minor for harpsichord BWV 894 into the Triple Concerto for flute, violin, harpsichord and strings BWV 1044. My initial idea was to realise a version of these works that would in any case present orthodox structural aspects consistent with a historical notion of instrumental style. Hence, in the Goldberg cycle, I transcribed the canons and some of the variations as chamber music for two instruments and basso continuo (Variations 3, 6, 9, 12, 15, 18, 21, 24) or two instruments without bass (Variations 11, 17 and 27). The challenge was to realise the rest of the variations in a homogeneous and complete texture in three or four parts, conceived for a group of strings and continuo. It therefore proved necessary to complete the irregular texture of many variations, adding lines or bringing out the polyphony present in skeleton form in the harpsichord writing. Variation 1 was completed in four real parts, as were nos. 5, 8, 14, 20, 23, 28 and 29. I added a middle part to Variation 7 in order to justify the function of the bass line as a bassetto. The French Overture of Variation 16 was completed in four real parts, as was its fugue, which in the original is mostly in three parts. Variation 20 was the piece that required the greatest adjustment of the writing to the possibilities of performance by a group of strings. The operation inevitably bordered on the arbitrary in those cases where it was necessary to complete the contrapuntal texture in order to realise four complete and independent parts. Very often, Bach’s compositional technique implies a significant quantity of canonic procedures (most apparent in Variation 8), inherent in the texture but which remained incomplete because of the obvious physical impossibility of executing such complexities with two hands. The figuration, especially the most brilliant, frequently reaches the limits of execution on a single stringed instrument (Variations 14, 20 and 26). For this reason, one might have accepted the principle, in some passages, of changing the figuration into something similar, but more idiomatic for the strings. But I preferred, at least for this recording, to keep as close as possible to the original for harpsichord. The result offers an opportunity to listen in a new way to the polyphony of the Goldberg Variations (and the rest of the programme) with the help of the rich timbres of a group of strings, which isolate the individual lines and at the same time recreate the contrapuntal unity of these pieces, underlining once more their extraordinary wealth of invention.”
Rinaldo Alessandrini é um maestro italiano, muito conhecido e admirado aqui no PQPBach por suas gravações de música barroca. Seu conjunto não por acaso se chama Concerto Italiano, e é com ele que os senhores terão a oportunidade de conhecer uma outra possibilidade de interpretação das míticas “Variações Goldberg”, neste caso em arranjo para conjunto de cordas e cravo. Muitos estão acostumados com as tradicionais versões ou para o próprio cravo ou então para piano, e de vez em quando trazemos outras possibilidades, como por exemplo, saxofone. O que tenho a dizer é que o trabalho que Alessandrini fez aqui é absolutamente sensacional, estonteante. Dá uma nova perspectiva a estas variações. Em minha opinião valem cada minuto de audição.
1 passacaglia in d minor, from the original for pedal harpsichord in c minor, bwv 582
aria variata alla maniera italiana in g minor for violin and basso continuo, from the original for harpsichord in a minor, bwv 989
2 Thema
3 Variatio 1
4 Variatio 2 5 Variatio 3
6 Variatio 4
7 Variatio 5
8 Variatio 6
9 Variatio 7
10 Variatio 8
11 Variatio 9
12 Variatio 10
13 canzona in d minor, from the original for organ, bwv 588
goldberg variations, from the original for harpsichord, bwv 988
14 Aria (à 4)
15 Variatio 1 (à 4)
16 Variatio 2 (à 3)
17 Variatio 3 – Canone all’Unisuono (à 3)
18 Variatio 4 (à 4)
19 Variatio 5 (à 4)
20 Variatio 6 – Canone alla Seconda (à 3)
21 Variatio 7 – Al tempo di Giga (à 3) [nicholas robinson]
22 Variatio 8 (à 4)
23 Variatio 9 – Canone alla Terza (à 3)
24 Variatio 10 – Fughetta (à 4)
25 Variatio 11 (à 2 violini)
26 Variatio 12 – Canone alla Quarta (à 3) [nicholas robinson]
27 Variatio 13 (à 3) [antonio de secondi]
28 Variatio 14 (à 4)
29 Variatio 15 – Canone alla Quinta (à 3)
30 Variatio 16 – Ouverture (à 4)
31 Variatio 17 (à 2, violino e violoncello) [antonio de secondi]
32 Variatio 18 – Canone alla Sesta (à 3)
33 Variatio 19 (à 3)
34 Variatio 20 (à 4)
35 Variatio 21 – Canone alla Settima (à 3) [nicholas robinson]
36 Variatio 22 – Alla breve (à 4)
37 Variatio 23 (à 4)
38 Variatio 24 – Canone all’Ottava (à 3) [antonio de secondi]
39 Variatio 25 – Adagio (à 3) [nicholas robinson]
40 Variatio 26 (à 4)
41 Variatio 27 – Canone alla Nona (à 4)
42 Variatio 28 (à 4)
43 Variatio 29 (à 4)
44 Variatio 30 – Quodlibet (à 4)
45 Aria (à 4)
Transcriptions, arrangements and adaptations by rinaldo alessandrini from the originals by johann sebastian bach
Concerto Italiano
Rinaldo Alessandrini – Harpsichord & Conductor