# Buxtehude vs Bohm on the harpsichord



## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

Is there a reason I enjoy Bohm’s harpsichord music more than Buxtehude’s, or is this arbitrary? I have sampled a range of performers and so I doubt that is the difference maker.

How do you rate the two composers for harpsichord/clavichord? :tiphat:


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

The first time I heard a Bohm suite, it was Leonhardt on clavichord, I was sure I was hearing Froberger or a French composer. 

The person who convinced me to take Buxtehude seriously was Glen Wilson, who wrote a really passionate essay for his Naxos recording. Buxtehude’s style is Italianate maybe, radiant.

Both these composers have to bear the burden of being associated with JSB, and his harpsichord music puts them in the shade; but they are what they are.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

There is no reason to prefer Böhm to Buxtehude or Buxtehude to Böhm. Both are highly individual and original composers in their own right. From both survives harpsichord music written in the German tradition but as to Böhm with a French seasoning and as to Buxtehude with a more international tone. As Mandryka writes they both stand in the shadow of Bach. Who doesn't? Another problem may be that their harpsichord music is overshadowed by their organ music, even if some of their music can be played on harpsichord as well as on organ..


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

premont said:


> There is no reason to prefer Böhm to Buxtehude or Buxtehude to Böhm. Both are highly individual and original composers in their own right.


I wonder though, if they are each highly individual and original composers, wouldn't this make it *more* likely that someone could like one but not the other?

I cannot help but find Bohm a bit more emotive, and this makes sense if, as you say, bohm is more french-sounding. He reminds me a bit more of the sensuous Couperin, for instance.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

As far as sensuality in Bux goes, performance matters. Wilson and Frisch play the music in a sensual way I think. As far as Frenchness goes, I thought the main interest of Simone Stella is that he seemed to give the music the colours and subtlety you expect more French classicism. I’ve never thought of Buxtehude and François Couperin together before in fact, Louis Couperin maybe. Listening to Stella makes me think that my comment about Italianate Buxtehude was naive, at least as far as the suites are concerned. 

Alessandrini and Stella may well be worth exploring, since they’ve recorded both Bohm and Buxtehude.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> Alessandrini and Stella may well be worth exploring, since they've recorded both Bohm and Buxtehude.


Also Mitzi Meyerson and Christian Brembeck.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

RogerWaters said:


> I wonder though, if they are each highly individual and original composers, wouldn't this make it *more* likely that someone could like one but not the other?


Maybe, but generally I see individuality and originality as a strength, when one tries to get a composer, and not as a bad thing.



RogerWaters said:


> I cannot help but find Bohm a bit more emotive, and this makes sense if, as you say, bohm is more french-sounding. He reminds me a bit more of the sensuous Couperin, for instance.


Who is the sensuous Couperin? I would say Louis.


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

premont said:


> Who is the sensuous Couperin? I would say Louis.


If you see Louis that way..., but I see François' delicate sensuousness in his vivid gallery of portraits of colleagues, pupils, friends and family- as mysterious and luminous, as one critic describes them, as the paintings of Claude Lorraine, as sensuous and subtly colored as Watteau's fêtes galantes. These pieces have descriptive titles that show François as an astute observer and commentator of the scene in Paris and at court. All manner of subjects could take his fancy, from a friend or famous personage to the ticking of a clock, the buzzing of an insect or a man with a limp. Further, François' preludes cultivate the sensuous sonority of the harpsichord, whether in the brisé manner or in a line that attempts to recreate the expressiveness of the viol on the harpsichord.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Your mentioning Claude Loraine made me think of this passage in Wilfred Mellars' book, which refers to Watteau's _Gilles_









Mellars writes concerning L'Arlequine (22nd ordre)



> a fine example of Couperin's ability to attain to sonorous richness with the minimum of means; it is this effect which made so deep an appeal to Debussy, and still more to Ravel, since they found in its emotional quality something that was not irrelevant to their position in the modern world. This quality is extremely subtle. A little swaying figure, ring between the fifth and sixth, opens the piece with an air of wide-eyed diatonic innocence which is belied by the artificial symmetry of the clauses, by the witty major and minor seconds, and by the melancholy of the sequential harmonies. As a whole, the piece is balanced between a bumpkin simplicity and sophisticated hyper-sensitivity, in a manner that almost justifies comparison with Watteau's wonderful painting of Gilles. Watteau and Couperin seem, in works such as these, to be attempting to transmute a personal loneliness or distress into the of the _commedia_, precisely because the theatre can idealise the crudities and indignities of everyday life into 'something rich strange'. It is the tenderness of the feeling - the sympathy with the outcast - that is so remarkable in Watteau's pictorial, and Couperin's musical, representation of the Fool. We may relevantly recall that at the time they created these works both Watteau and Couperin were sick men.


 which got me very excited when I first read it I rushed to the music, and I was looking forward to having my personal distress transmuted. But no . . . it's just wasted on me!

Here's a fun one


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## RICK RIEKERT (Oct 9, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> I rushed to the music, and I was looking forward to having my personal distress transmuted. But no . . . it's just wasted on me!


Not at all. Now you know what _doesn't_ work.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> If you see Louis that way..., but I see François' delicate sensuousness in his vivid gallery of portraits of colleagues, pupils, friends and family- as mysterious and luminous, as one critic describes them, as the paintings of Claude Lorraine, as sensuous and subtly colored as Watteau's fêtes galantes. These pieces have descriptive titles that show François as an astute observer and commentator of the scene in Paris and at court. All manner of subjects could take his fancy, from a friend or famous personage to the ticking of a clock, the buzzing of an insect or a man with a limp. Further, François' preludes cultivate the sensuous sonority of the harpsichord, whether in the brisé manner or in a line that attempts to recreate the expressiveness of the viol on the harpsichord.


Your explanation of Francois Couperin's sources of inspiration is of course spot on, and it is also true, that he writes very idiomatically for the harpsichord, but I have never been a great fan of his music. In my book it just expresses a wish to entertain in a diplomatic and courteous and also somewhat formulaic way without going too much in depth. But how could it be otherwise at the court of the Sun king?


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> As far as sensuality in Bux goes, performance matters. Wilson and Frisch play the music in a sensual way I think. As far as Frenchness goes, I thought the main interest of Simone Stella is that he seemed to give the music the colours and subtlety you expect more French classicism. I've never thought of Buxtehude and François Couperin together before in fact, Louis Couperin maybe. Listening to Stella makes me think that my comment about Italianate Buxtehude was naive, at least as far as the suites are concerned.
> 
> Alessandrini and Stella may well be worth exploring, since they've recorded both Bohm and Buxtehude.


Thank you. (Btw it's Bohm who tends to sound a little more french to me, than buxtehude).

When it comes to Bohm, i go with Robert Woolley at the moment as opposed to Stella or Alassandrini. A's agogics, making the music sound jerky, isn't to my taste.

:tiphat:


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

RICK RIEKERT said:


> If you see Louis that way..., but I see François' delicate sensuousness in his vivid gallery of portraits of colleagues, pupils, friends and family- as mysterious and luminous, as one critic describes them, as the paintings of Claude Lorraine, as sensuous and subtly colored as Watteau's fêtes galantes. These pieces have descriptive titles that show François as an astute observer and commentator of the scene in Paris and at court. All manner of subjects could take his fancy, from a friend or famous personage to the ticking of a clock, the buzzing of an insect or a man with a limp. Further, François' preludes cultivate the sensuous sonority of the harpsichord, whether in the brisé manner or in a line that attempts to recreate the expressiveness of the viol on the harpsichord.


Indeed, my apologies, i meant the junior Couperin.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

RogerWaters said:


> Indeed, my apologies, i meant the junior Couperin.


But who is he???


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

premont said:


> But who is he???


François Couperin!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

RogerWaters said:


> Thank you. (Btw it's Bohm who tends to sound a little more french to me, than buxtehude).
> 
> When it comes to Bohm, i go with Robert Woolley at the moment as opposed to Stella or Alassandrini. A's agogics, making the music sound jerky, isn't to my taste.
> 
> :tiphat:


What did you make of the Rübsam Bohm, and indeed Leonhardt? They're the two who mean the most to me I think. I haven't heard Woolley, the only thing I know by him is some Gibbons.


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## RogerWaters (Feb 13, 2017)

Mandryka said:


> What did you make of the Rübsam Bohm, and indeed Leonhardt? They're the two who mean the most to me I think. I haven't heard Woolley, the only thing I know by him is some Gibbons.


Rubsam's independent voice, non-chordal, approach is very unique and well executed. I like the pace and phrasing and tone very mich. However, I find the non chordal approach unfulfilling in some way. Is this approach the result of a theory about how the music was actually intended to sound? Leonhardt is, of course, superb and he is generally my favourite harpsichordist bar none.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

RogerWaters said:


> Rubsam's independent voice, non-chordal, approach is very unique and well executed. I like the pace and phrasing and tone very mich. However, I find the non chordal approach unfulfilling in some way. Is this approach the result of a theory about how the music was actually intended to sound?


He certainly argues that his Bach was meant to sound like that, arguing from c18 conceptions of cantabile and even from the alignment of the voices in the manuscripts; I don't know whether he'd say the same for Bohm and Pachelbel. I must say, the more I listen to what he does the more I find it satisfying.



RogerWaters said:


> Leonhardt is, of course, superb and he is generally my favourite harpsichordist bar none.


And yet it's his clavichord recording of a Bohm suite which I value the most.


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