Back and Forth

Jessica Balik on July 22, 2008
From Beethoven to Wagner to Schoenberg, Johann Sebastian Bach influenced the subsequent course of Western music. Everybody knows that. Particularly influential is Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier. This work consists of two volumes, each of which features one prelude and one fugue in every major and minor key. Since Well-Tempered Clavier is a staggering compendium of Bach's contrapuntal techniques, classical performers and composers alike learn from it still today. But is Bach's encyclopedic work relevant even for jazz composers like Charlie Parker, to say nothing of performers of folk music from around the world? Stephen Prutsman, a pianist, composer, and arranger, seems to think so. On a Sunday morning program he played Bach's 24 preludes and fugues from the second book of Well-Tempered Clavier (ca. 1740). Prutsman's recital fell within the "Carte Blanche" series of the Music at Menlo summer music festival. Artists who participate in this series, as its title suggests, have free reign in devising their programs. Prutsman titled his recital "Bach and Forth," and in it he moved back and forth, alternating between Bach's preludes and fugues, and pieces by other composers. Prutsman's program ran nearly two hours long in playing time alone. The audience enjoyed lunch during an extended intermission. But hungry versus full stomachs were hardly the only difference between the two halves of this extraordinary — not to mention extraordinarily well-performed — program. In the first half, Prutsman alternated between Bach's pieces and works by composers within the canon of Western art music. The interpolated composers dated from progressively later eras. A character piece by Jean-Philippe Rameau, a French composer who lived at about the same time as Bach, served as the first non-Bach piece. A movement from Arnold Schoenberg's Suite for Piano (1923), a composition in which Schoenberg pioneered the 12-tone method of composition, served as the last. Other pieces that were interspersed between the Bach preludes and fugues included the Adagio from Beethoven's "Moonlight" Sonata, compositions by Ravel and Scriabin, and a Liszt transcription of a piece by Wagner. Prutsman performed all this music without ever pausing long enough for the audience to applaud. But while this first half was a concatenation of varied pieces, the second half was even more so. In the latter half, the remaining preludes and fugues alternated with jazz and folk songs. Prutsman himself penned their arrangements. They included Charlie Parker's Ornithology; a tune by Purandara Dasa, a South Indian who was active mainly in the first half of the 16th century; a progressive rock number by the band Yes; and folk tunes from Uzbekistan and Rwanda.

Putting It Together

Throughout the program, which Prutsman performed entirely from memory, various connections linked the pieces. Key relationships numbered among them. The Scriabin and the ensuing Bach were linked by the common key of B-minor, for example. Motivic relationships provided still more unity, even in the second half. More abstractly, Prutsman explained that he understands embellishment or ornamentation as well as improvisation or quasi-improvisation to link Bach to jazz. Then again, he also said — perhaps only half jokingly — that he was using his "Carte Blanche" concert "as an excuse to play what I always wanted to play." Be that as it may, from the first alternation between Bach and Rameau through all the jazz, rock, and folk pieces in the program's second half, Prutsman's incredible musicianship was the most significant unifying factor for the program. From sensitive pianissimos to flashy, pounding virtuosic passages, or from the cerebral Bach to the visceral popular tunes, few musicians would have the wide range of ability to pull off this program. In short, "Bach and Forth" was one of the more impressive recitals I have ever heard. This was partly due to the uniqueness of its programming, but also because Prutsman performed even the oft-played Bach pieces so engagingly that he captivated his audience for the entire duration of this lengthy program. It might be argued that it is Bach's universality — his enduring appeal to so many artists over such a long period — that makes him great. Prutsman showed that Bach's relevance can reach beyond Western classical music to jazz, rock, and even world folk music. Regardless whether such widespread appeal does indeed testify to Bach's greatness, Prutsman's own fiercely comprehensive aptitude for playing "Bach and Forth" between such diverse music must surely testify to his.