Teaching Baroque Performance Practice at the Piano: A Comparative Study of Pedagogical Editions

Abstract

Baroque music is an integral part of a pianist’s repertoire, and therefore its presence is ubiquitous in piano teaching literature. Although most Baroque keyboard works were not originally written for piano, most pedagogical collections of piano music establish Baroque as the earliest of the four or five style periods. Therefore, it is essential that pianists are familiar with Baroque performance practice, the stylistic conventions on how to perform Baroque repertoire. The rise of the historically informed performance (HIP) movement in the second half of the twentieth century affected the way pianists teach and perform Baroque keyboard repertoire, as they strive to make practices of articulation, phrasing, and ornamentation more consistent with those adopted during the Baroque period. This change of paradigm is represented in current editions used to teach Baroque repertoire, which more consistently incorporate stylistic conventions aligned with Baroque treatises on music performance. Although the editorial practices on Baroque concert repertoire have been widely studied in the literature, especially regarding the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, no study has been conducted on how modern pedagogical editions of elementary and intermediate Baroque works teach the fundamentals of Baroque performance practice. This study provides a comparative analysis of selected pedagogical editions of Baroque keyboard works in light of historical performance sources, as well as modern sources by musicologists, performing artists, and pedagogues. Focusing on twenty Baroque keyboard works aimed at late-elementary to intermediate piano students, the study identifies how pedagogical editions published in or after 1980 reflect conventions of Baroque performance practice regarding rhythm, tempo, fingering, ornamentation, articulation, phrasing, and dynamics. As a result, it provides a portrait of established teaching practices at this moment in time. Chapter 1 includes an overview of the topic of teaching Baroque performance practice, establishes terminology used to classify music editions, and presents the need and the purpose of the study, the limitations of the study, and the procedures adopted for the selection and analysis of pedagogical editions. Chapter 2 presents a review of relevant literature, comprising four sources of Baroque performance practice: historical treatises, musicological studies, and writings from performing artists and piano pedagogues. Chapters 3 through 7 comprise the comparative analysis of editions of twenty Baroque keyboard pieces, with each chapter covering four pieces of similar level of difficulty. The pieces are leveled according to Jane Magrath’s leveling system from Piano Literature for Teaching and Performance, and each of chapters 3 through 7 corresponds to one level in Magrath’s classification, from level 3 to level 7. Chapter 8 presents the conclusions and suggestions for future studies and future editions. The study indicates that, although most surveyed editions are demonstrably influenced by performance practice described in Baroque treatises (especially the Essay on the True Art of Playing Keyboard Instruments, by Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach, and L’art de toucher le clavecin, by François Couperin), editorial practices are often not consistent across different publications by the same editor, and even across different pieces in the same publication. Over-editing and use of long legato lines are some of the characteristics found in surveyed editions that do not align with current HIP-inspired Baroque performance practice. Performance suggestions by the editors indicate that most of them are influenced by the sound capabilities of the harpsichord, but do not intend to fully imitate the harpsichord, instead taking advantage of the specific characteristics of the modern piano in regard to dynamics, articulation, and phrasing. Although most editions present performance directions that conform to Baroque performance practice, they often adopt a prescriptive approach to articulation, phrasing, and especially ornamentation. With some laudable exceptions found in editions of Reid Alexander, Richard Jones, Helen Marlais, Willard Palmer, and Christos Tsitsaros, most editions are not able to convey the experimentative ethos of HIP, and thus may fail to communicate one of the most fascinating aspects of Baroque music.