John Butt, who is part stand-up comedian, and part musician, is always entertaining as he speaks to the audience before each of his performances. And, his program notes for the Bach Festival printed programs are superb.
However, sometimes he is so far off the mark, that you can only scratch your head in puzzlement. His opening piece on the Monday Morning Harpsichord recital was one of those moments. "Prelude No. 1 in C Major, he said, " is so simple I will try to play it in as complicated a manner as possible." And what we heard was several minutes of some of the strangest rhythms you have ever heard - not the infamous
notes inegales, but rather the kind of messed-up, unequal rhythmic flow you sometimes hear from bad piano students who don't know how to count.
Make no mistake about it, Mr. Butt
can count, and his musicianship is of the highest order. So, what we heard was something we were intended to hear. The late harpsichordist Ralph Kirkpatrick was fond of interjecting agogic delays in the name of expressivity, so perhaps we have to accept Mr. Butt's experiment as one more so-called expressive device invented by the latest generation of harpsichordists.
Well, now that I have that off my chest, I have to say that the remainder of the recital was very fine indeed. Mr. Butt served us up a representative selection of Preludes & Fugues from the Volume I of Bach's Well Tempered Clavier. His tempos were well chosen and the music emerged with a nice clarity.
Also quite charming were the four Fantasias by Telemann that reminded us that we don't hear enough from the pen of this fine composer. Mr. Butt guided us through some of the twists and turns of the various styles represented in these pieces, and they made a very pleasant effect.
The major work on the morning's program was the Bach
Partita No. 5 in G Major, and this received a knockout performance. Although not so often heard as the other Partitas, this piece contains some of the happiest keyboard music you are likely to hear from Bach. The energetic Italian style of the opening
Preludium brought out the best in Mr. Butt, who not only played all the notes, but also added a few of his own ornaments. The lovely
Courante also hummed along in superb Italianate fashion. Especially charming was his rendition of the
Tempo di Minuetto which sounded as though it consisted of triplet eighths in 2/4 time, except for the occasional foot-tripping emergence of a measure where we clearly heard three beats in a measure.
The
Gigue that closed the Partita was splendid. This
Gigue is especially difficult in its second half, where the fugue-like theme is inverted and becomes much harder to play clearly. Mr. Butt was equal to its difficulties, and made it seem like child's play.
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