Interview with Tatjana Vorobjova

We’re talking today about your outstanding new CD titled Bach … con passione. This is the first CD of yours devoted entirely to the music of Bach, although I believe you’ve recorded some Bach before.

Yes. On my Cembalo cantabile CD, I recorded the French Suite No. 4 in E♭ and the short but beautiful chorale “Wer nur den lieben Gott läßt walten,” from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach.

Bach is not a name that one normally associates with “passion.” Most people would characterize his music as being more intellectual than passionate. For many artists, perhaps, it is also a bit intimidating.

Yes, that’s true to a certain extent.

What brought you to the music of Bach? I imagine that your involvement with Bach goes back to your student days. Or is this a new phase for you?

Well, it was always part of my overall plan. Now that I’ve recorded several CDs of other music, I thought it was time to record my own version, my own conception of Bach. It’s similar to how I decided that it was time to record the music of Scarlatti and Johann Krieger.

Bach represents a new, much larger dimension for me. Bach’s music is so familiar, and there are so many recordings of it to compare, that it becomes all the more challenging.

My goal was really to present Bach in a different light. Going back to what you said, this meant perhaps to play the music in a less intellectual, more emotional way than one usually hears. I find a parallel, for example, in the Passions of Bach. When you hear these pieces, you realize that Bach overlaid them with are so many emotions. There is literally an explosion of feelings that washes over you. This is particularly evident when one hears the St. Matthew or St. Johnperformed live.

So why should his keyboard music be treated any differently? When I play a particular keyboard work by Bach, why shouldn’t it have the same effect on the listener as the Passions? Naturally my goal wasn’t to play his vocal music on the harpsichord. There’s plenty of music written specifically for keyboard. But it was always my idea that Bach’s keyboard works could be approached in the same way as his vocal music. For many “normal” concerts of Bach, this might not be the case.

“Normal” is not a word that one associates with Bach.

Yes! [laughs] Considering all the complex, learned counterpoint that he packed into his music, it’s clear that he was far from “normal.” “Extraordinary” is perhaps a better word. Nevertheless, I wanted to bring the expressive side of his music to the fore, and so I chose the pieces on this CD with that in mind. Also, I chose them with the idea that they would complement each other and form a unified program.

That raises an interesting question of whether complex counterpoint might be antithetical to expression.

Oh, not at all! I don’t think the one excludes the other.

So, we can say that this is the rationale behind your CD.

Exactly that. I wanted to dispel some of the common misconceptions about Bach’s music. I wanted to break down barriers. Considering how many successful recordings there are of Bach’s keyboard works, I realize that might sound rather presumptuous of me.

I tried to stay with a framework that I’m comfortable with, but at the same time to allow myself a certain amount of freedom. The idea is to create an expressive road into Bach’s music. With the vocal music, being expressive is of course a lot easier. As a harpsichord player, I have to avail myself of all the expressive techniques that are native to the instrument.

That’s part of the problem, right? Many listeners are under the impression that the harpsichord is an instrument completely lacking in dynamics and nuance. Even the critics—many of them fail to recognize expressive harpsichord playing when they hear it. An example is when a gifted performer uses devices like varied articulation and rubato to make the music come alive.

Exactly. I’ve experienced that myself many times. This has always bothered me, the false premise that the harpsichord is lacking in dynamics and expression. This was especially bothersome when, for example, I’ve had to work with provincial concert organizers with this kind of prejudice. “Oh, no—the harpsichord? Do you think the audience will be able sit still for a whole hour of this stuff?” [laughs]

A whole hour of harpsichord music? Oh my god!

Right! I really don’t know where it comes from. Perhaps it’s unavoidable, given the nature of the instrument. Naturally, as a harpsichordist, I have always tried to make the music more accessible.

Perhaps it occurs because too many harpsichordists, even today, are not adventurous enough. They like to stay within “established boundaries.”

Yes, exactly. They want to play it safe.

Getting back to the issue of “passion,” that’s a point of view that could apply to the entire Baroque period. The whole idea of “rhetorical style” is something that has been marginalized in present-day period instrument performance. I’m curious if you know the name Bruce Haynes. He was one of the first pupils of Frans Brüggen, so he’s considered one of the pioneers of the period-instrument movement. In his last book, The End of Early Music, Bruce wrote about how early music has lost much of the original excitement and spark of the 1960s and 1970s. Present-day soloists and orchestras play in tune and note-perfect, but without the kind of engagement that the early pioneers like Brüggen, Harnoncourt, and Leonhardt exhibited. To quote Bruce, “Chops, but no soul.”

I’m aware of this issue. Naturally I don’t claim to be the first or the only harpsichordist who plays expressively, or that I do it better than anyone else. There are plenty of harpsichordists nowadays who play expressively. In contrast to other instruments, I think the issue is this shared opinion that the harpsichord is a dry, unemotional instrument. Many are critical of the harpsichord, as if to say that you “really can’t make music with it.” Of course, there are festivals and concert series where the harpsichord is the main attraction, but in comparison with other types of concerts, the audience draw is still quite a bit less.

That’s a big handicap if people think that you “can’t make music” on a harpsichord.

Unfortunately, I hear that a lot—and from people who may have only heard a harpsichord once or twice in their life.

So, which harpsichordists do you admire for their expressive playing? Which one would you go out of your way to hear in a concert?

I have to say that one of my all-time favorites is Pierre Hantaï. I was already captivated by his playing as a youth, when I first started collecting CDs. I thought, “Yeah, there’s something inspiring there.” Since then, I’ve attended several of his live concerts. I always found his playing to be compelling and totally engaging. After hearing him live, I knew that was the direction I wanted to take.

Pierre Hantaï, of course, is probably the best-known Leonhardt pupil currently before the public. I’m wondering—have you ever done a joint concert with another harpsichordist?

I have played the Bach two-harpsichord concertos with orchestra. It isn’t always easy to find another harpsichordist who has the same approach as I do, though. But, of course, I’m always open to new possibilities.

Getting back to the idea of “passion” in early music, don’t you think that nowadays there is a kind of prohibition in effect against playing with passion? Anyone who plays expressively and with great communication is frowned upon, especially in orchestras. I always think back to the famous quotation from Quantz, how he entreats the performer to “arouse or still [the listener’s] passions, and to transport [him] now to this sentiment, now to that.”

That’s a wonderful quotation. And absolutely—that was the norm during the Baroque era.

In your collaborations with other Baroque musicians, have you noticed a tendency to “play it safe,” especially in recordings?

If we’re talking about orchestral music, I’ve actually noticed the opposite. Period musicians are playing these days with greater freedom and emotion compared to before. There are a few period instrument ensembles out there who obviously have taken Harnoncourt’s Klange-Rede to heart. They take risks and play with great abandon—Giardino Armonico, for example.

Giardino Armonico might be an exception to the rule.

They aren’t afraid of interpreting the music the way they see it. Giardino Armonico is one example, but there are other ensembles whose playing is much less academic than in the past. Many harpsichord recitals, on the other hand, tend to be on the academic side, with an emphasis on perfection and little or no risk-taking, in which expression often takes a back seat. Not to be critical, but….

Risk-taking—that’s a useful concept. I’m thinking of the complete Bach cantatas on period instruments that Harnoncourt and Leonhardt began recording over 50 years ago. Now, that was a big risk.

Absolutely.

Think about it—that was a half-century ago. We’re living in a new era, an era of absolute perfection when it comes to the notes, but the expression has been largely scrubbed away—at least in comparison with how Harnoncourt and Leonhardt used to play.

I’ve noticed this tendency, too, at least in the harpsichord world. It’s what motivated me to develop my own interpretive style. Even when I was starting out on the harpsichord, the thought occurred to me that it might be possible to do more with the music than I was hearing at the time. Perhaps it was arrogant of me to think that. I’ve never really told anyone this, but in retrospect that’s probably what give me the biggest “push” in the beginning.

I would think that it’s much harder to forge your own expressive style on the harpsichord than on, say, the violin or oboe.

Absolutely. When I think of the influences that shaped me early on, one of the most important was a professor named Hermann Stinders in Brussels, where I did some post-graduate work. He was really good! I remember him saying, “When you play, you mustn’t think of yourself as just playing the harpsichord, but rather that you’re calling forth all the other forms of expression available to you, as if other instruments were involved.”

After that, I started to think of myself as playing something more than just “the harpsichord.” It gave me tremendous freedom. I could take more time with the music, in some cases adopting more relaxed tempi. There wasn’t this pre-ordained concept of the music to hold me down. I started to think about how I could best communicate to the audience. I wanted them really to experience something, not just the usual, boring harpsichord recital.

Where half of the audience leaves after intermission.

Yes, exactly. I remember the pianist Mikhail Pletnev putting it this way: “After all, they’ve gone to all the trouble of purchasing a ticket, finding a babysitter, driving to the hall, and finding a parking spot. They could just as easily be sitting at home watching TV!” That’s naturally a challenge for any performer. The audience is expecting something moving and personal, not just a quasi-lecture about some arcane historical rules.

I’m so glad when someone comes up to me after the concert and says, “Oh, I’ve never heard harpsichord playing quite like that before.” I’ve experienced this a couple times recently, and it’s the best possible compliment. It means that I’ve communicated with them; I was able to touch them.

It’s great when they say that, instead of pointing out that you failed to observe Couperin’s Fourth Rule, or whatever.

Right! [laughs]

Of course, that’s the problem with harpsichord recitals. You go there expecting to hear music, not a dissertation.

Exactly. But as a performer, you’re always taking a chance. Do I play a certain piece the way I practiced it, or do I dare to take it faster, or slower, or with different ornamentation, or with some new inspirations of the moment? But then, anything can happen. For example, I might hit a wrong note and the flow is disrupted or the effect is lost.

When you talk about wrong notes, it makes me think of the late, great Scott Ross. I’m sure you know Rameau’s Jupiter, from his Pièces du clavecin, right?

Of course.

Ross gave a wonderful concert towards the end of his life—it’s preserved on CD—and Jupiter was the encore. Towards the end of the piece, Ross has worked up to a fever pitch, and even though you can’t see them, you sense that the audience is hanging on every note. He goes to play a chord and “grabs a handful,” as the saying goes. But it hardly matters. The audience applauds wildly, eventually breaking into rhythmic clapping. Thankfully, in the final version of the CD, the wrong notes were not edited out.

Scott Ross is a perfect example of a harpsichordist who possessed this “spirit,” this wonderful expressive ability. He was the kind of performer that you wanted to listen to from start to finish.

He was a Leonhardt pupil, of course. Leonhardt, Harnoncourt, and Brüggen—those three constitute the triumvirate to which we owe so much.

Agreed. I was lucky to be able to hear Leonhardt twice in live concert before he passed. People say that he didn’t move around a lot, that he sat motionless, intensely concentrating on the music. But that wasn’t the case! He did move, and sometimes quite a lot. I was expecting something quite different—you know, the impression one gets from seeing photos on his recordings. The concert wasn’t note-perfect, but that didn’t matter. There was quite a bit of emotion. I was surprised by the connection that he achieved with the audience.

They say that Europeans move a lot more when playing, as compared with the Americans or the Japanese. What is your normal “mode of operation”?

I do move around a bit, perhaps because I’m small. I need to do this in order to reach the entire keyboard. This was especially true when I was a child. My teachers always criticized me for this. “Child, you should sit quietly and not move around so much.” [laughs] Naturally, one should avoid excessive movement because it might detract from one’s concentration. But I find a judicious amount of movement to be “organic.” It’s part of being expressive.

That’s perfect—it contributes to the expression. It’s another way of gaining contact with the audience.

But not too much movement. You have to find the right mixture.

I notice in Facebook that recently you’ve been doing some collaborative work with ensembles. Is that something new for you?

No, this has always been a part of my activity as harpsichordist. Now, however, I’m concentrating more and more on solo work—recitals, recordings, and so on. Last August I made my solo début at the Utrecht Early Music Festival. I played a recital in the Lutherse Kerk, where so many famous harpsichordists have performed. It was part of a program called Le Trésor des Clavecinistes IV. What a great feeling it was to be a part of this, the biggest early music festival in Europe. It inspired me and gave me motivation to further my career.

From a musical standpoint, playing a solo recital is a lot more challenging than playing continuo. But it’s also much more rewarding. You’re there all by yourself on stage with no other musicians to back you up. Yes, it demands a tremendous amount of work, but it’s what I would rather do if I have the chance. As a soloist, you communicate your interpretation directly to the audience. In an ensemble, you’re bound by what the conductor or concertmaster dictates.

In spite of that, working with colleagues in an ensemble can often be very rewarding. I do enjoy being hired to play continuo in Bach cantatas, which is some of the most glorious music in the whole Baroque repertoire. In recent years I’ve performed quite a few of them with different Baroque groups around Cologne, and doing so has taught me a lot about expression in Bach’s vocal music.

Do you do much organ playing?

No, just organ continuo in orchestras or in chamber music. Usually, it’s a type of chamber organ called a Truhenorgel in Germany—a single manual with three or four stops, without pedal.

I noticed in Facebook that you recently gave a concert in Schloss Bedburg. Where is that?

It’s a little town on the outskirts of Cologne, near where I live. It was the first harpsichord recital for this concert society, which has been around for a long time.

You know, of course, that I don’t normally write a review of the CD in question. But I will say that when I auditioned your Bach CD, I had the uncanny feeling of intimacy, that you were playing exclusively for me.

Well, that’s exactly what writers like Quantz and Matheson have been telling us to do for centuries! And it’s point of all our endeavors—to speak directly to the listener, to transport him or her “now to this sentiment, now to that.”

For me as a harpsichordist, it’s particularly important to dispel the idea that the harpsichord is a cold, mechanical instrument. I want to show people the expressive capabilities inherent in the harpsichord. It’s all there—you just need to know how to extract it.