By C. Michael Bailey
Strange Pilgrims. At first blush, listeners might consider the 18th Century's Johann Sebastian Bach and the 20th Century's Maurice Kagel to be strange bedfellows. At second blush, listeners might think it odd that these two classical lions are addressed in the electrons of a jazz magazine. Actually, both composers (as well as their interpreters) belong squarely in these quarters. Both impressions are faulty. The taxonomist of the Baroque and the father of postmodernism in music have much in common. Bach and Kagel are both innovators and taxonomists. Bach took the Baroque of Vivaldi, cataloged it and made it more orderly with compositions like The Well-Tempered Klavier and The Art of Fugue. Kagel emerged for the twelve-tone maelstrom with a unique postmodern vision manifested in such compositions as Rrrrrr... and his piano works.
Bach and Kagel deserve to be discussed in a jazz venue because they composed music that has subsequently been interpreted and re-interpreted many times. Their music is not unlike the Tin Pan Alley tunes of the Gershwin brothers and others; music that has passed through a plethora of interpretive and performance media. Bach's keyboard music has been performed on the traditional harpsichord, modern piano, and transcribed for the guitar. Kagel's music has enjoyed a similar treatment. This music of innovation has become the vehicle of further innovation in the hands of the interpreters. Isn't that what jazz is all about?
Two recent recordings from the iconoclastic German label Winter and Winter bear this out. Violoncello Solo Suites I - VI Paolo Beschi, Baroque Cello (Winter & Winter 910 028) and Solowerke für Akkordeon und Klavier Teodoro Anzellotti, Accordion and Luk Vacs, Piano (Winter & Winter 910 035) are provocative examples of "classical music" screaming to be reconsidered from something other than a conventional wisdom standpoint. This is music and performance that requires the listener to consider paradigms and understand this music in a completely different manner, one that might defy categorization.
Suite, Suite Cello. The Bach Cello Suites are to music as Shakespeare's comedies are to world literature. It is almost as if this music as here in the beginning, seminal and vital, part of our collective unconscious. The catalog of recordings of the Suites is voluminous. The suites performed on a modern cello, the suites performed on a Baroque cello, the suites performed on a viola, transcribed for guitar, harp, and piano, they have had almost every conceivable treatment.
On this recording, Paolo Beschi, attacks these giants aggressively, revealing the inner anima of pungent beauty in the compositions' character. This is not uncharted territory for Beschi. He is the principle cellist for the Italian period instrument ensemble Il Giardino Armonico, who's Four Seasons was an earthy, sensual delight. In this Bach, Beschi plays with a robustness almost too rough for the music when compared to more traditional interpretations (I cite Pierre Fournier's 1961 performances on Deutsche Grammophon 419 359). But the music can withstand this robustness. What is revealed is an exciting, almost frenetic sense of celebration. Suites I and V illustrate this in Beschi's assertive bowing.
Rrrrr... Solowerke für Akkordeon und Klavier emerged to very favorable criticism upon its release. Accordionist Teodoro Anzellotti transcribed four pieces from Kagel's organ collection Rrrrrrr... in the same way did Erik Satie's piano music on an earlier Winter & Winter release (910 031). Anzellotti, touted as the Paganini of the accordion, takes these organ pieces and transforms them into a traditional folk music realm much as Uri Caine did with the music of Mahler (Gustav Mahler in Toblach, 910 046). His playing is sensitive, thoughtful, and provocative. On the whole, these pieces are quite accessible and could be of interest to anyone interested in ethnic music. Maybe not what Kagel intended, but still very penetrating. The music endured the interpretation, revealing itself ingeniously in Anzellotti's performance.
When Music is Music. It is nice every once in a while to lose the rules and listen to music as music while not worrying about when it was composed or, even by whom, for that matter. These two recordings illustrate the transcendence and ubiquity of well-composed music, music that not only blurs but obliterates genre lines, leaving the listener with the only things that count, notes, space, and inspiration.
