Jean-Philippe Rameau

BKLA0100665021-AFCD-NO 19.12.2005 11:20 Uhr Seite 1 Rameau/Barto/Ondine: ODE 1067-2 CD 5” BOOKLET A BASKET OF WILD STRAWBERRIES A Selection of Keyboard Jewels by Jean-Philippe Rameau TZIMON BARTO, piano YELLOW MAGENTA CYAN BLACK <P#1> BKLA0100665021-AFCD-NO 19.12.2005 11:20 Uhr Seite 2 0% Rameau/Barto/Ondine: ODE 1067-2 Rame 3% 5% 7% 45% IN 50% By 55% Ho 93% Tzi 95% Qu plea 97% Ma unt 100% incr mu ied, som stan In ope Tzi Tri tem com He Sui Jean-Philippe Rameau the (1683 – 1764) Roy <P#2> BLACK4 BKLA0100665021-AFCD-NO 19.12.2005 11:20 Uhr Seite 3 Rameau/Barto/Ondine: ODE 1067-2 INTERVIEW WITH TZIMON BARTO By Susan Gould How did you first come to Rameau – or vice versa? Tzimon Barto: I’ve always had a predilection for early art: the Italian Trecento and Quattrocento, for instance, and in music, the Renaissance and Baroque. It’s what I listen to for pleasure, so I was familiar with Rameau. But then, in 2001, I saw his opera Platée, performed by Marc Minkowski and Les Musiciens du Louvre: I’ve never seen better opera in my life! That is, until I went to a production of Rameau’s Les Boréades in 2003 performed by William Christie’s incredible group, Les Arts Florissants, and it was the same. Everything was perfectly in sync: the 3 musical interpretations, the direction, sets, costumes, dazzling choreography, yet not in a stud- ied, overly-historical way. Both productions were updated to modern times, and yet they were somehow very Baroque, with similarities to our age of surfeit and excess. And you could under- stand the French! So this inspired me to probe more deeply into Rameau’s keyboard music. In your interpretations of these keyboard works, what is the relationship to the operatic Rameau? Tzimon Barto: When I play Les Soupirs, from the Pièces de clavecin, I have in mind the aria Tristes apprêts from Castor et Pollux, because it’s the same mood, in the same Common Time and tempo. But also generally, Rameau’s opera orchestration is more varied than any other baroque composer’s, with effects to depict different categories of people or to imitate sounds of nature. He was already an Impressionist! In fact, Debussy was a great admirer of Rameau. In the E minor Suite, Le Rappel des oiseaux really sounds like birds! There is another side: Rameau comes from eau the tradition of the troubadour and he uses a lot of folk music: for example, in Platée, which is a 1764) Royalist opera, poking fun at the peasants, he employs the low strings to imitate the drones of BLACK1 <P#3> BKLA0100665021-AFCD-NO 19.12.2005 11:20 Uhr Seite 4 0% Rameau/Barto/Ondine: ODE 1067-2 Rame 3% 5% 7% 45% bagpipes. In the E major Musette en rondeau from the Pièces de clavecin, I use the sostenuto pedal fit p to get the effect of the same sort of drone, while the melody is made up of simple segments as in is a 50% folk melodies, very different from the others. The Tambourin, Rigaudon, and of course, the him Gigues, all have their origins in folk music. per 55% exp atel 93% How did you choose which pieces to record? slow Bru 95% Tzimon Barto: Just as I do for a recital: if I like it from A to Z, and it speaks to me personally, ope I play it. And in programming more Rameau in my recitals, I’ve realized how much I like the ana 97% pieces, so I felt they should be recorded. Baroque tradition allows the performer to pick and tha choose from books and suites: you don’t have to do every piece, and you can do repeats or not. Ram 100% 4 beli mel How do you approach the performance of harpsichord music on the piano? inte Pre Tzimon Barto: All my teachers, whatever their specialty, including Adele Marcus with her amaz- wit ing quality of sound, said never try to play the piano as if it were a harpsichord. Instead – again, too coming from opera, which was, after all, Rameau’s forte – I approach this music from the stand- point of a singer, who seeks a variety of colors and phrasing – ideally, as in Christie’s group. And I want every phrase to be as poetic as possible. You can’t do dynamic phrasing on a harpsichord, Wh but you can on the piano. I never want any two notes in a phrase to sound alike: I pride myself on having 36 dynamic colors between ppp and fff ! Tzi of r Sar Then there is the question of ornamentation. “off so t Tzimon Barto: On the harpsichord, there’s no way to sustain notes or create legato phrases, so acro the harpsichordist has to use ornamentation not only for variety but as a means to connect notes pos and give the illusion of continuity. That’s not necessary on the piano. I like ornaments, and some use <P#4> BLACK BKLA0100665021-AFCD-NO 19.12.2005 11:20 Uhr Seite 5 Rameau/Barto/Ondine: ODE 1067-2 edal fit perfectly, but I prefer to go with the singing line and leave them out wherever possible. If there s in is a heartfelt line full of pathos, I don’t want to disturb it with excessive ornamentation. Rameau the himself writes in very little ornamentation – his scores are bare, really – and leaves that up to the performer. For example, in the E minor Allemande, the mordents are written in. If, after lengthy experimentation, you leave out certain ones, the mood becomes more resigned, more appropri- ately passive than active – in short – you create a greater effect by using less. Les Soupirs is like the slow movement of a Bruckner symphony, which is not to say that you should play it as if it were Bruckner, but that Bruckner perhaps wrote music unconscious of, yet indebted to, Rameau! The ally, opening phrase is one of the most beautiful ever written. I play it – anachronistically and maybe the anarchically, too! – in a slow tempo and with minimal ornamentation, but I can get away with and that on the piano and it is another example of where more ornamentation would interfere. ot. Rameau truly revolutionized harmony, studying the overtone series and incessantly exploring his belief that the original impulse for music was not melody, but harmony. There are beautiful 5 melodies that become gorgeous only because of their harmonic surroundings; the two sides are so integrated and homogenized that they just can’t be separated. At the same time, the pieces of the Premier Livre grow out of just one note, like the E-flat in Rheingold: this happens most obviously maz- with the set’s Prélude growing out of the low A and unfolding in the whole overtone series. This, ain, too, gives more leeway for maneuvering the tempi. nd- And ord, What about the pieces that are specifically dances? self Tzimon Barto: The source of all the pieces is either dance or singing, which dictates what kind of rubati you take – if you take rubati. And some pieces are a combination of both, like the Sarabande that is so lyrical, it no longer demands to be true to that dance form, and loses the “official” stress on the second beat. So from dance, it becomes song. The “Niais” are court jesters, so their dances are not the courtly dances of Haydn or Mozart but witty, bizarre pieces, imitating , so acrobats, which is what I do with them, taking an excessively fast tempo that just would not be otes possible on the harpsichord. A propos “rubato,” I was initially of the opinion that it should be ome used more sparingly than in, say, Romantic literature. After listening to many excellent specialists, BLACK <P#5> BKLA0100665021-AFCD-NO 19.12.2005 11:20 Uhr Seite 6 0% Rameau/Barto/Ondine: ODE 1067-2 Rame 3% 5% 7% 45% most notably – harpsichordists, I realized I was very, very mistaken, and, refreshingly, could Tzi allow myself much more flexibility as regards this “art of transcendent time.” 198 50% Salz Bar 55% Beyond the technical side, how should the performer – how have you, personally, orc delved into Rameau’s world? and 93% and Tzimon Barto: You should read his treatises, as well as Couperin’s, and Leopold Mozart’s, while Ber 95% you’re at it, but even more importantly, you need to know the whole milieu, the poetry, litera- Sym ture, visual arts that made up the culture. I have found paintings that seem to me to be related to Sym 97% the works I’m playing: Watteau for all the Niais, the Fanfarinette, Les Tendres Plaintes; Chardin de for the Prélude and the Musette; Greuze and Fragonard for La Joyeuse, and so on. Tzi 100% 6 This recording is a carnival, a fair of answers to questions about Rameau-interpretation. Rav Depending on the piece, the answers are more or less satisfying. I must add, however, that the Pet hundreds of years between a composer’s death and the birth of any one of his performers are just coll as an important factor in that soloist’s development of an informed interpretation as are the Bar immediate cultural tradition that the composer inherited and the years in which he actually lived. Pro Bar Sch ran TZIMON BARTO In Recognized as one of the foremost American pianists of his generation, Tzimon Barto has been lang giving exciting and highly acclaimed performances on both sides of the Atlantic.

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