On one side of 1st Street in downtown L.A., Einstein looms large. On the other side, Socrates. Who can possibly walk among them? Why, Bach, of course.
Wednesday night at Walt Disney Concert Hall, the Hungarian pianist András Schiff performed Bach's six "English" Suites with a consciousness-raising concentration. He reminded us, Socrates-like, that unexamined Bach is not worth playing. Einstein-like, he demonstrated the profound relative nature of musical time.
I even caught a glimpse of Einstein as she walked by in the lobby at intermission.
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That was violinist Jennifer Koh, herself a notable Bachian who is appearing as the great physicist in "Einstein on the Beach" at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion this weekend.
Although the Music Center has made little of it, the complex happens to be hosting at the moment a remarkable, if ad-hoc, brainpower extravaganza assessing three of history's greatest minds. Without them the world wouldn't be anything at all like the one we inhabit.
Einstein comes to us courtesy of Los Angeles Opera's presentation of the Philip Glass and Robert Wilson opera. Across the way at Disney, the Los Angeles Philharmonic has the premiere of Brett Dean's oratorio, "The Last Days of Socrates."
And it all began with what felt like a spectacular shower of shooting neurons Wednesday with the first of Schiff's latest Bach recital programs. What made the night's performance all the more impressive is that the "English" Suites are not quite the best of Bach. Yet to come from Schiff's Bach series this season will be the six Partitas next Wednesday, followed by the "Goldberg" Variations on Oct. 20.
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Musicologists are not sure what it is that makes the "English" Suites English. These are, in fact, French suites in that they are made up of a series of French dances. But they are not Bach's "French" Suites; that set of six keyboard pieces came later.
Bach was probably 30 when he wrote the "English" Suites (though he revised them a few years later), and they display characteristics typical of a very clever young composer. They are everywhere shot through with genius. Each opens with a wondrous prelude that is a font of what sounds like improvisatory invention, full of harmonic and contrapuntal surprises.
In some of the dances, though, and especially in the jumpy courantes, Bach can try too hard to be ingenious. Some of his fussily irregular phrases could cause chaos on the dance floor. Nor does he resist the temptation to load melodic lines down with excessive embellishments that he surely loved for showing off his virtuosity at the keyboard.
But Bach also amazes with special keyboard effects that sound avant-garde to this day, and he can suddenly take your breath away with a turn of phrase that is so gorgeous you barely believe your ears. The slow, stately sarabandes are, all six of them, beautiful beyond words and glories of the keyboard literature.
Bach, in the end, is always Bach. No bar goes by that doesn't repay investigation, and that is Schiff's approach. He is an ascetic Bachian. His recitals can come across almost like religious rituals. He played the suites straight through, without a break between the dances and allowing only a few seconds applause between the works. Disney remained bathed in a quiet, reverent hush. The intermission came between Nos. 4 and 5, making the first half an 80-minute marathon.
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Schiff's playing, nevertheless, is anything but somber. Indeed, he can prove downright seductive. He did not use the pedal. He gave an appropriate nod to proper period practices in his carefully tasteful embellishments and crystal-clear revelation of inner lines. This is music originally written for the harpsichord.
But his pearly, even sensual, tone is pure piano. Schiff also has a flair for the playful. And even without using the sustaining pedal, he somehow gives the impression of bending pitches for rapt expressivity.
The suites flowed. Tempos were swift. Details came out, often catching a listener unaware.
I had the sensation of riding a raft down white-knuckle Bachian rapids. Out of the corner of my eye (ear?), I took in the breathtaking scenery. But the power was in the afterimages. This is where experiencing time got confusing and electrifying, because past, present and future all started to seem as one.
Schiff ended the last suite in a state of exhilaration with dazzlingly supple gavottes and then a terrorizing gigue. He left a dazed audience with an extravagant encore: Bach's "Chromatic" Fantasy and Fugue, ferociously played.
Now on to Einstein and Socrates — then more Bach. Too bad the Music Center failed to follow the example of these great thinkers and think a little differently by maybe providing, especially to students, some sort of genius ticket package deal, to say nothing of mounting a symposium.
mark.swed@latimes.com
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