Artur Schnabel : Bach

Q: Do you agree that in playing Bach one should try to imitate the harpsichord, that is, its dynamic qualities, playing on different dynamic levels rather than with any crescendo or diminuendos?

A: I know; a war has been going on between musicologists for a long time over the issue as to whether crescendo and diminuendo is permissible in Bach's music, the Mannheim School having invented the expressions crescendo and diminuendo after Bach's time. But crescendo and diminuendo are not only expressions; they are elements of articulation and modulation, and if Bach's music were performed without articulation and modulation - or inflection, as in language - it would be unbearable, it would not be music. The same applies to legato and staccato. I am absolutely against the exclusive non-legato in performances of Bach's music.

There is no necessity to imitate the sonority of old instruments, for we have to assume that Bach chose those instruments only because better ones were not available. It is known that he wrote for four different instruments and that each time an improved instrument appeared he wanted even those of his works which were written for the previous instrument to be played on the improved instrument. These are facts.

Did you know taht the pianoforte was invented during Bach's lifetime? The first ones were built around 1710 in Padua, Italy. Some musicians hailed it with great enthusiasm, but the inventor was not succesful and few of these instruments were built. Bach saw an apparently poor imitation, the first one built in Germany in 1726, and found it unsatisfactory. In the last years of his life, Bach then saw a much improved model. So I think it is most important that Bach, during a substantial part of his life, knew about the invention and existence of the pianoforte and even played on it.