As a Clavier player Bach was admired by all who had the good fortune to
hear him and was the envy of the virtuosi of his day. His method greatly
differed from that of his contemporaries and predecessors, but so far no
one has attempted to explain in what the difference consisted. The same
piece of music played by ten different performers equally intelligent and
competent will produce a different effect in each case. Each player will
emphasise this or that detail. This or that note will stand out with
differing emphasis, and the general effect will vary consequently. And
yet, if all the players are equally competent, ought not their
performances to be uniform? The fact that they are not so is due to
difference of touch, a quality which to the Clavier stands as enunciation
to human speech. Distinctness is essential for the enunciation of vowels
and consonants, and not less so for the articulation of a musical phrase.
But there are gradations of distinctness. If a sound is emitted
indistinctly it is comprehensible only with effort, which occasions us to
lose much of the pleasure we should otherwise experience. On the other
hand, over-emphasis of words or notes is to be avoided. Otherwise the
hearer’s attention will be diverted from the tout ensemble. To permit the
general effect to be appreciated every note and every vowel must be
sounded with balanced distinctness.
I have often wondered why Carl Philipp Emmanuel Bach’s _Essay on the Right
Manner of playing the Clavier_(117) does not elucidate the qualities that
constitute a good touch. For he possessed in high degree the technique
that made his father pre-eminent as a player. True, in his chapter on
“Style in Performance,” he writes, “Some persons play as if their fingers
were glued together; their touch is so deliberate, and they keep the keys
down too long; while others, attempting to avoid this defect, play too
crisply, as if the keys burnt their fingers. The right method lies
between the two extremes.” But it would have been more useful had he told
us how to reach this middle path. As he has not done so, I must try to
make the matter as clear as is possible in words.
Bach placed his hand on the finger-board so that his fingers were bent and
their extremities poised perpendicularly over the keys in a plane parallel
to them.(118) Consequently none of his fingers was remote from the note it
was intended to strike, and was ready instantly to execute every command.
Observe the consequences of this position. First of all, the fingers
cannot _fall_ or (as so often happens) be _thrown_ upon the notes, but are
_placed_ upon them in full control of the force they may be called on to
exert. In the second place, since the force communicated to the note
needs to be maintained with uniform pressure, the finger should not be
released perpendicularly from the key, but can be withdrawn gently and
gradually towards the palm of the hand. In the third place, when passing
from one note to another, a sliding action instinctively instructs the
next finger regarding the amount of force exerted by its predecessor, so
that the tone is equally regulated and the notes are equally distinct. In
other words, the touch is neither too long nor too short, as Carl Philipp
Emmanuel complains, but is just what it ought to be.(119) Many advantages
arise from holding the hand in Bach’s position and from adopting his
touch, on the Clavichord and Harpsichord,(120) and on the Organ as well.
I point out merely the most important of them. To begin with, if the
fingers are bent, their movements are free. The notes are struck without
effort and with less risk of missing or hitting too hard, a frequent fault
with people who play with their fingers elongated or insufficiently bent.
In the second place, the sliding finger-tip, and the consequently rapid
transmission of regulated force from one finger to another, tend to bring
out each note clearly and to make every passage sound uniformly brilliant
and distinct to the hearer without exertion. In the third place, stroking
the note with uniform pressure permits the string to vibrate freely,
improves and prolongs the tone, and though the Clavichord is poor in
quality, allows the player to sustain long notes upon it. And the method
has this advantage: it prevents over-expenditure of strength and excessive
movement of the hand. We gather that the action of Bach’s fingers was so
slight as to be barely perceptible. Only the top joint seemed to move.
His hand preserved its rounded shape even in the most intricate passages.
His fingers rested closely upon the keys, very much in the position
required for a “shake.” An unemployed finger remained in a position of
repose. It is hardly necessary to say that that other limbs of his body
took no part in his performance, as is the case with many whose hands lack
the requisite agility.(121)
A man may possess all these qualities, however, and remain an indifferent
performer on the Clavier, just as clear and agreeable enunciation does not
necessarily make a good speaker. To be a first-rate performer many other
qualities are needed, and Bach possessed them all in a notable degree.
Some fingers are longer and stronger than others. Hence players are
frequently seduced to use the stronger whenever they can readily do so.
Consequently successive notes become unequal in tone, and passages which
leave no choice as to the finger to be used may become impossible to play.
Bach recognised this fact very early in his career. To get over the
difficulty he invented exercises for his own use in which the fingers of
both hands were made to practise passages in every conceivable position.
By this means every finger on both hands equally became strong and
serviceable, so that he could play a rapid succession of chords, single
and double “shakes,” and running passages with the utmost finish and
delicacy, and was equally fluent in passages where some fingers play a
“shake” while the others on the same hand continue the melody.
Besides these improvements, Bach invented a new system of fingering.(122)
Before his time, and even in his early years, it was usual for the player
to pay attention to harmony rather than counterpoint. Even so it was not
customary to use every one of the twenty-four major and minor keys. The
Clavichord was still what we term “gebunden”; that is, several keys struck
the same string, which, therefore, could not be accurately tuned.(123)
Consequently it was usual to employ only those keys whose notes were tuned
with some approximation to accuracy. Again, good players in those days
hardly ever used the thumb, except when a large interval had to be
stretched. But when Bach began to melodise harmony so that his middle
parts not merely filled in but had a tune of their own, when, too, he
began to deviate from the Church modes then in general vogue in secular
music, using the diatonic and chromatic scales indifferently, and tuning
the Clavier in all the twenty-four keys, he found himself compelled to
introduce a system of fingering better adapted to his innovations than
that in use, and in particular, to challenge the convention which
condemned the thumb to inactivity. It is held by some writers that
Couperin forestalled Bach’s method of fingering, in his _L’Art de toucher
le Clavecin,_ published in 1716. But that is not the case. In the first
place, Bach was above thirty years old in 1716, and had already developed
a distinctive method of his own. And in the second place, Couperin’s
system differs materially from Bach’s, though both made more frequent use
of the thumb than was so far customary. When I say “more frequent use” I
do so advisedly; for whereas in Bach’s system the thumb is the principal
finger—for the difficult keys, as they are called, are unplayable without
it—it is not equally indispensable with Couperin, whose thematic material
was not so intricate as Bach’s, nor did he compose or play in such
difficult keys. Consequently Couperin had not an equally urgent need to
use the thumb. We need only compare Couperin’s with Bach’s system of
fingering, as Carl Philipp Emmanuel explains it,(124) to discover that
Bach’s permits every passage, however intricate and polyphonic, to be
played with ease, whereas Couperin’s is hardly effective even for his own
compositions. Bach was acquainted with Couperin’s works and highly
esteemed them,(125) as he did those of other French Clavier composers, for
their finish and brilliance. But he considered them affected in their
excessive use of ornaments, scarcely a single note being free from them.
He held them, also, superficial in matter.
Bach’s easy, unconstrained use of the fingers, his musical touch, the
clearness and precision of every note he struck, the resourcefulness of
his fingering, his thorough training of every finger of both hands, the
luxuriance of his thematic material and his original method of stating it,
all contributed to give him almost unlimited power over his instrument, so
easily did he surmount the difficulties of its keyboard. Whether he
improvised or played his compositions from notes, he systematically
employed every finger of each hand, and his fingering was as uncommon as
the compositions themselves, yet so accurate that he never missed a note.
Moreover, he read at sight other people’s compositions (which, to be sure,
were much easier than his own) with the utmost facility. Indeed, he once
boasted to a friend at Weimar that he could play at sight and without a
mistake anything put before him. But he was mistaken, as his friend
convinced him before the week was out. Having invited Bach to breakfast
one morning, he placed on the Clavier, among other music, a piece which,
at a first glance, seemed perfectly easy. On his arrival, Bach, as was
his custom, sat down at the Clavier to play or look through the music.
Meanwhile his friend was in the next room preparing breakfast. In a short
time Bach took up the piece of music destined to change his opinion and
began to play it. He had not proceeded far before he came to a passage at
which he stopped. After a look at it he began again, only to stop at the
same place. “No,” he called out to his friend, who was laughing heartily
in the next room, “the man does not exist who can play everything at
sight. It can’t be done.” With that he got up from the Clavier in some
annoyance.(126)
Bach also could read scores with remarkable facility and play them on the
Clavier. He found no more difficulty in piecing together the separate
parts when laid side by side before him.(127) He often did so when a
friend brought him a new Trio or Quartet for Strings and wished to hear
how it sounded. If a Continuo part, however badly figured, was put before
him he could improvise a Trio or Quartet upon it. Nay, when he was in the
mood and at the height of his powers, he would convert a Trio into a
Quartet by extemporising a fourth part. On such occasions he used a
Harpsichord with two manuals and pedal attachment.
Bach preferred the Clavichord to the Harpsichord, which, though
susceptible of great variety of tone, seemed to him lacking in soul. The
Pianoforte was still in its infancy and too coarse.(128) Both for practice
and intimate use he regarded the Clavichord as the best instrument and
preferred to express on it his finest thoughts. He held the Harpsichord,
or Clavicembalo, incapable of the gradations of tone obtainable on the
Clavichord, an instrument which, though feeble in quality, is extremely
flexible.
No one could adjust the quill plectrums of his Harpsichord to Bach’s
satisfaction; he always did it himself. He tuned his Harpsichord and
Clavichord, and was so skilful in the operation that it never took him
more than a quarter of an hour. It enabled him to play in any key he
preferred, and placed the whole twenty-four of them at his disposal, so
that he could modulate into the remoter as easily and naturally as into
the more nearly related keys. Those who heard him frequently could hardly
detect the fact that he had modulated into a distant key, so smooth were
his transitions. In chromatic movements his modulation was as easy and
sequent as in diatonic. His _Chromatic Fantasia,_ which is now
published,(129) bears out my statement. In his extemporisation he was
even freer, more brilliant and expressive.
When he played his own music Bach usually adopted a brisk pace. He
contrived to introduce so much variety that every piece became a sort of
conversation between its parts. If he wished to express deep emotion he
did not strike the notes with great force, as many do, but expressed his
feeling in simple melodic and harmonic figures,(130) relying rather on the
internal resources of his art than external dynamics. Therein he was
right. True emotion is not suggested by hammering the Clavier. All that
results is that the notes cannot be heard distinctly, much less be
connected coherently.