Bach at speed - but at what speed?

Over the years I have struggled to understand if there is a ‘correct’ speed to play Bach, not helped by organ teachers over the years with their own individual perspectives. In 1986 George Stauffer and Ernest May edited a collection of essays entitled ‘J.S.Bach as Organist’. This is a very useful monograph but does not make any comments on the speed with which Bach’s organ works should be played. This is also the case with Stauffer’s recent superb book on the organ music of Bach.

There is however a comment on speed in Albert Schweitzer’s biography of Bach, published in 1902. In the section on the performance of the organ works (English translation Chapter XIV p311) Schweitzer notes

“The more we play Bach’s organ works the slower we take the tempo. Every organist has this experience. The lines must stand out in calm plasticity. There must be time also to bring out their dovetailing and juxtaposition. At the first impression of obscurity and confusion the whole effect of the organ piece is gone. If so many organists imagine that they play Bach “interestingly” by taking him fast, this is because they have not mastered the art of playing plastically so as to give vitality to the work by bringing out its detail clearly.”

At present I am working on getting the Prelude and Fugue in A minor BWV543 up to recital/examination standard. This piece has some interesting features. There is no autograph edition. It seems likely that the Prelude and Fugue were written around 1720. The notation and structure of the Prelude suggest that Bach is still conscious of the North German traditions of composition and performance. In Leipzig, later in his life, Bach made some changes to the notation of the opening ‘cadenza’ of the Prelude, perhaps to give it more authority. He did not make changes to the Fugue, which unusually is in 6/8 implying a gigue dance approach and ends with a minor chord.

We are fortunate as organists to have access via YouTube to a very wide range of performances from highly experienced players. I have started to delve into the many recordings of this work that are on YouTube and also CDs that I have of the complete organ works of Bach by Simon Preston and Peter Hurford.

I have now listened to over a dozen performances, all from distinguished organists. The fastest/shortest is 8min 40sec by Ton Koopman in a recording dating from 1988. In a 2019 recording by Koopman the overall duration was 9min 05sec but the Prelude still comes in at under 3 minutes. Hurford comes in at 10min 46sec and Preston at 10min 27sec. Jeanne Demessieux, renowned for her virtuosity, takes 9minutes 45sec.

Two organists from an earlier generation are E.Power Biggs at 10min 19sec and Marcel Dupré at 10min 33sec recorded in 1951. The slowest I have found is by the legendary Helmut Walcha, who takes 11min.30sec. In an obituary of Walcha (The Musical Times, Vol. 133, No. 1789 (Mar., 1992), pp. 145-147) there is the comment that Walcha “had a pulse that came from within the music that never for a moment suggested a mere succession of bar lines.

I should emphasis that I am not seeking a definitive ‘correct’ speed. I know the speed that I am currently playing it at lies between the extremes on record, and that gives me a reassurance that the examiner has no grounds to criticize my performance on the basis of the performance time!

There is an interesting discussion on the topic of playing Bach with regards to speed in this blog post.

https://themusicsalon.blogspot.com/2021/06/do-we-play-bach-too-fast.html

BWV 543 is an amazing piece of music that I have enjoyed practicing on a bar-by-bar basis. The fugue in particular has many performance challenges. When it comes to making a choice of recording it has to be Helmut Walcha playing the Schnitger organ of St. Laurenskerk, Alkmaar. Flawless technique, registration and performance.