James McVinnie: Clavier-Übung III
This was Bach at his most complex, a dense, almost encyclopaedic run-through of musical styles.
James McVinnie got this year's festival off to a fine start in the Cathedral - can it really only be ten days ago - performing in a stunning collaboration with Tristam Perich. For me, it was one of the most ambitious highlights of the programme. A second performance seemed the perfect way to (almost) finish things off. Bach's Clavier-Übung III at St Peter Mancroft was, in all other respects, a completely different experience from Infinite Gradient. Earlier in the festival I attended the Goldberg Variations, transcribed for strings. Performed faultlessly by the Philharmonia Chamber Players, I nonetheless baulked at the lush romanticism of the treatment and hungered for the hard-core maths-rock of proper Bach. Well, be careful what you wish for, as McVinnie delivered exactly that in spades.
Bach published four volumes of keyboard music entitled Clavier-Übung - literally keyboard practice - the third of which focused on organ music. It's a dense compendium of musical styles, dense in codified meaning. As McVinnie explained in his introductory talk, the Holy Trinity is alluded to throughout, with even the sheet music referencing the cross in its key passages. I'd be fibbing if I pretended I understood all, or even most, of what McVinnie said but two things emerged: his palpable enthusiasm for this extraordinary collection of compositions and the fact that the number three turns up all over the place.
Beforehand, he appeared in an altogether more accessible film, commissioned for the festival, where he explained the variety of church organs on hand in Norfolk, ranging from the majesty of the recently restored Cathedral's, to the mellifluous tone of the organ of Cawston Church. Our focus, however, was the organ in St Peter Mancroft and the justification for putting up with the murderously uncomfortable pews therein. The current instrument was built by the British organ builder Peter Collins and installed in 1984, and is distinguished by its unusually Germanic tuning. So quite apart from the acoustics of the building, if you want to hear Bach's organ music as he did, this is the place to come to.
James McVinnie's boyish enthusiasm at getting the chance to play it was both charming and infectious. As he scaled the precipitous spiral staircase, only to pop up on screen at the front of the nave, the atmosphere was pregnant with expectation. Lurking alongside him was an anonymous - we never did get to see his face - page-turner and occasional knob-puller, but otherwise McVinnie was in command of all at his disposal. Akin to a sixteenth-century Moog, with the stops acting as an early form of presets, the organ required McVinnie and his assistant to set up each prelude before launching into displays of extraordinary dexterity. I'm still puzzling over whether the writing or performing was the most impressive.
The answer is, of course, both, and therein lies the rub. I'm not sure that impressive is the first word you want springing to mind. Neither are accomplished, educational or instructive. This was Bach at his most complex, a dense, almost encyclopaedic run-through of musical styles. Two complementary preludes, the first much longer and pedal-heavy, the second shorter and more intimate, were followed by movements that left me disorientated and sadly disconnected from the emotional core that McVinnie clearly feels while playing. You only had to watch his face to see that.
Perhaps it was sitting, in considerable discomfort, with my back to the pipes, but I never managed to lose myself in the music. Perhaps the music itself was simply too episodic to transport me. Perhaps I'm just not clever enough to appreciate it. It's not you James, it's me, in other words. But it's a box ticked and an experience I don't regret taking a punt on.
