Music lovers, and especially Bach aficionados, will have a rare opportunity on Sunday, Nov. 13, when noted keyboardist Carsten Schmidt plays the whole of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, sometimes known as WTC 2. It’s a collection of 24 preludes and fugues, each pair in a different key. The concert, at 3 p.m. at Central United Methodist Church, advances Schmidt’s on-going Bach Project. He will perform in concert all the harpsichord music of J. S. Bach—more than 140 pieces.
Schmidt has been working toward this professional goal for several years, dividing the required 16 hours of performance over several concerts. It’s a monumental undertaking, usually only to be heard in New York City, Boston or in Europe. The series is the first time in the region that anyone has pursued such a diverse and demanding musical program. Schmidt’s concerts offer a rare chance to hear Bach’s works in their entirety and played on a historically accurate harpsichord, the instrument for which they were composed.
The WTC, in two volumes composed about 20 years apart, has been the daily bread of composers and keyboard performers from the 18th century to today, widely known as one of the most influential works ever composed. Beethoven knew it top to bottom and always kept his copy of the music near to hand. Book 2 is considered to be significantly more difficult than Book 1, as well as more adventuresome, complex, and inventive. It is less used for teaching and less often heard in concert than its predecessor.
Discovering Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, a pre-concert workshop, will be offered the previous Sunday, Nov. 6, also at 3 p.m. at the same location. Music historian Jason Stell, Ph.D. will join Schmidt to explore the history of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2. They’ll note striking details from Book 1 and other precedents as Schmidt performs selections. Light refreshments will close the event.
Carsten Schmidt is artistic director of the Staunton Music Festival and regularly appears as a pianist and harpsichordist at significant festivals and concert halls in the U.S. and Europe, including the Ravinia Festival, International Schubert Festival in Amsterdam, Kaleidoscope Festival in Moscow, the German Mozart Festival, Merkin Hall in New York City, and the Kennedy Center, in addition to radio broadcasts worldwide. He has conducted opera productions of Handel and Purcell, and a concerto program at the Kuhmo Festival in Finland. He holds artist diplomas from the Folkwang Institute of the Arts in Germany and Indiana University, and a doctorate from Yale. He has been professor of music at Sarah Lawrence College in New York since 1998.
The Staunton Music Festival’s harpsichord, in the French style, was a gift to the Festival from a long-time supporter. Bach owned several harpsichords over his lifetime, and it is almost certainly the instrument for which he composed WTC 2, although other options were available. He owned one of the a newly-introduced fortepianos, but that was still something of an upstart, while the harpsichord was highly refined and at the peak of its popularity. And the ubiquitous clavichord was mostly used for personal practice or performance, as it was too quiet for public performance.
Central United Methodist Church, at 14 S. Lewis St. in Staunton, allows the close, direct connection between performer and audience that typified Bach’s performance circumstances. Its beautiful windows, at their best in the afternoon, enhance the audience’s experience.
Tickets for the preview discussion and refreshments on Nov. 6 cost $15, students $5, and age 16 and under pay-what-you-will. Concert tickets for November 13 cost $20, Seniors $18, Students $8, and age 16-and-under again PWYW.
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