* Switched-On Bach 2000 (Text-only version, all footnotes and formatting are missing in this format.) Please NoteŃ The notes below are fairly detailed and longer than usual. After twenty-five years there were quite a few things IÕd saved up and wanted to say. If you want to know about the history of the Switched-On recordings, look at the section marked A Brief History. If youÕve noticed and youÕre curious about the unusually pure sound of the music, much of the credit lies in the tunings used, and you may want to read that section, Authentic Bach Tunings. And if you want to know about some particular selection of the music, theyÕre all described under The Music. * Introduction It seems impossible to believe that almost 25 years have elapsed since Switched-On Bach was produced. Multiply that time by four and you have a century, which always sounds like such a long time. Obviously a lot has happened in this quarter of a century. Even if we look only at the music world, a lot has happened. To paraphrase Dickens, some of it is the best thing that could have happened, and some of it is the worst. By the late 70Õs I had done what I thought would be my final Bach album, a collection of the six Brandenburgs, which was about all I had to say on the subject. Those were about the best I could do with the state-of-the-art as it then was. So why this all-new album? IÕve had people asking me for years now, by mail and in person, to do some more electronic Bach. And lately some of you have wondered out loud how the new technology of music making, digital this and that and MIDI, might change or help things. Rather like EinsteinÕ s famous thought-experiments IÕve been asked how a MIDI sequencer or new digital sounds and recording methods might have improved Switched-On Bach. But I was strong. Until now. Yet nothing sounds strange about von Karajan having recorded and rerecorded BeethovenÕs 9th Symphony about a dozen times in his lifetime. Even Glenn Gould returned to the Goldberg Variations, where he started, and recorded his mature impressions of that masterpiece at the end of his brief life. An artist brings a very different point of view to a work in midlife than was possible in youth. Perhaps some intrepid spark or flash of enthusiasm is the hallmark of a young interpretation, and this may not be as true when one is older. But the balanced perspective and security of oneÕs technique, and an understanding of what has come before and why, must add at least as much as whatever may be diminished. Then after Beauty In The Beast was released, my first excursion into the terra incognita of non-equal temperament, I began to hear murmurings like, ŅGosh, think of how your Bach realizations would have sounded if you had been able to use BachÕs own tunings!Ó Enough! I became hooked to the idea that perhaps indeed it was time to venture into that well known and loved spot again. Just how WOULD I do Switched-On Bach today? * Slowly Sure, I know, there are all these new music devices and computers and magic black boxes, and all are supposed to bring music making into a new democratic world, open to all, souped-up and turbo-charged: 1) ItÕs supposed to be easier. (It ainÕt.) 2) ItÕs supposed to be quicker. (Ditto.) 3) ItÕs also supposed to be better. If by that you mean that the sound quality can now exceed the best we could do in the late 60Õs (stress on Ņ canÓ), itÕs probably true. I shudder to think of the shock of hearing what the vinyl version of my carefully engineered master tape sounded like. At best the groove noises covered up some of the tape hiss.# Even though I had been a stereo master cutter and recording engineer, I was taken aback by the pinch distortion, pre-and post-echo, popping and ticking, and inner groove losses that passed as state-of-the-art. It was a losing battle to try to get the levels up with minimum limiting while squeezing in about 22 minutes a side. Of all media some audiophiles worship (how about Dolby A tape?) this one I can least understand. Yuk! With so many poor sounding CDÕs made, mostly in the first few years of digital audio, itÕs no surprise that some listeners wince at that seven letter word. But digital can be awfully good, with its absence of hiss and distortion, the ruler flat response, and the ability to copy and recopy without change or loss. Digital synthesis, a completely different animal, has much more potential power than the finest analog machines. After all, each and every harmonic can be exactly controlled, from millisecond to millisecond, with the precision and repeatability of a computer. ThatÕs why itÕs such a boon for complex acoustic-like synthesis and sound modeling. It also provides the means to venture out at last from the closeted confines of the 12 note equal tempered scale. A good deal of the smoothness of sounds and harmonies on this recording is due to the tunings used, all of which sound better than equal temperament. On the other hand, during the old Moog synthesizer days there was an immediacy in hearing a particular sound, and deciding it had to be brighter, or harder attacked, or more vibrato, or some suchŃeverything was under your fingertips. To use the MIDI gear of today, you are forced to build up huge inventories of sounds as sort of Ņcanned potentialsÓ. At the same time, it takes much longer to construct and trim up the new more complex sounds we can build. Consider all the computerized devices a mere musician is expected to deal with nowadays, like the MIDI interfaces, channelizing, system patch wiring, digital processors, computer interfaces, hard disk recording, program bug recovery, SMPTE sync tone, laser printers, console automation, and on and on and on. Once again they are all there to help you. Help who? Not me. TheyÕre here to act as a scrim between me and my music, a responsibility to learn and remember and never ever get confused. For every parameter you can control, you must control.# Well, you try your best. At times I seriously consider chucking the whole thing and returning to my piano and pencil and paper. I mean, the worst thing that could happen then is the pencil lead could break, or very rarely a piano string. Why donÕt I? ItÕs like the old joke, I need the eggs.# Once hooked on hearing a final master like any of those on this recording itÕs hard not to feel a real kick, or looking at a gorgeously printed out set of parts and score for a string quartet that you Ņtyped intoÓ your computer, using your own fonts. Well, itÕs an addiction hard to break. But I do think about it. Often. The result of all of this can be seen in the time and effort department. To do the first recording we spent nearly five months, at seven days a week. Usually I put in between five and twelve hours a day, averaging eight (we still all had full-time jobs, remember), for a total of over 1000 hours. This time around, even granting the additional music, it was seven months of about fourteen hours every day, and another two or three months at about eight plus. That comes out to over 3000 hours, or about three times as long. So it works out that each new musical Ņtime saverÓ and ŅimprovementÓ that comes along saves me around minus 10-15%É(yeah, but we make up for it in volume). But every field has itÕs occupational hazards, and it wasnÕt all drudgery. I got quite a kick doing a lot of it, like visiting old friends once more, and couldnÕt wait to share it all with you, especially as each selection was finally mixed and Ņcame togetherÓ. You may still prefer the 25-year-old versions, but I think this one sounds quite good, too. * Once Again with Feeling The only sane way I could approach this all-new realization of the music I had done earlier, was to ignore the older version. ItÕs been over seven years since I last heard it, and even then it was just to check the quality of the CD reissue. The performances seemed to hold up pretty well, as I remember. Some of the tempos seemed a little uncomfortable. There were a few small stumbles I had let go by as the lesser of two evils. But I had to find my way through the familiar repertoire all anew. I could play the music into my computer at the most comfortable tempo. The horrors of either full speed or half speed, the only two options (or suffer a key change) was gone. No longer must each take be letterŃahem, note-perfect. So I could go for a complete take of each passage and stop when I got one that felt absolutely good, even if there was a clinker in it that I could edit out later. I could save it, and try again. Or come back another time and save the best of that one, and then decide between several of such when all the parts were done and there was a good context with which to make these important decisions. So I ended up using a lot of earlier takes on these new recordings, say take 4 or 5, instead of the old days when take 30 or yes, even take 40 might be necessary. If any spontaneity was left by that time, it was purely gratuitous and unexpected. From a point of view of having MUSICAL performances, there is simply no argument: the new way wins hands down. For this recording I could go in and fine-tune my performances, moving notes about, adjusting the level of one which may have stuck out as too loud in an otherwise good phrasing. Timings could be stretched here and there to fit better with one another, allowing the tyranny of the click track of all my earlier performances to be gotten around. ItÕs the way painters, graphic artists, writers and poets, can go for the broad gestures initially, and then polish and work on the details at a later pass. Great! Particularly helpful for making these unquantized performances sound Ņ rightÓ was: tempo came last. I didnÕt have to use the think method of trying to hear the music in my head first, while laying down a rigid click tempo track. Those places in my first album where the tempo sounds wrong are just thatŃwrong. I would have fixed it then, if it hadnÕt meant redoing the entire thing all over again, with no guarantee that the new one would be correct, or indeed any better at all! Now the tempo can be adjusted when the whole thing is assembled, even doing small adjustments on certain beats to recapture my human rubato. It really improved the whole thing such that going back to a flat metronome was painful. All these editing session took time, lots of it. The process is very much like Disney animation, with the rough pencil tests first, and corrections to smooth out awkward bits, and all the sleight of hand that this kind of art form permits to capture an idealized concept that belies the effort involved. * A Brief History In the early 60Õs it was difficult to get people to listen to, never mind take seriously, any music that was made electronically. Be it the French Musique ConcrŽt (manipulated recorded acoustic sounds), the German Pure Electronic Music (sounds generated electronically), or American Tape Music (sounds from both of the above, manipulated on magnetic tape), the general public considered it to be avant garde in the worst sense, completely without redeeming value or commercial interest. In truth, nearly all of the music made with electronic means at that time had been original contemporary classical music. It was the dissonance, dodecaphony, aleatory, avoidance of melody, harmony, and all other such features of modern music that made it such an alien, hostile listening experience for many. Electronic music with the same properties was certainly no better, but also no worse. But here the electronic medium was blamed. Yes, it was then more primitive then most other musical methods, but that may have helped give it a charm that was ironically not usually intended. So I began my young experience as a composer realizing that what I had to offer was generally hated. But I thought that if I offered people a little bit of traditional music, and they could clearly hear the melody, harmony, rhythm and all the older values, theyÕd finally see that this was really a pretty neat new medium, and would then be less antipathetic to my more adventurous efforts. By the mid 60Õs there appeared several newer devices which looked more promising for a more conventional electronic music than the tape studios, mainframe computer terminals, and binary punch-tape RCA synthesizers of the 50Õs. This was the modular synthesizers that Bob Moog, bless him, had begun manufacturing. The keyboard controllers solved the problem of inputting notes and chords of a usual kind, while the convenient sets of knobs, switches, and patch cords, made it rather straightforward, if not simple, to get a good variety of useful new sounds. I saved up every cent not needed for food and rent to buy a small Moog system, and eventually became close friends with this bright, inventive, and surprisingly musically literate electronics wizard. He not only permitted feedback, but asked for it, and it was good fun to find many of my own ideas become real tools with Bob. Soon I had enough modules to begin turning out some musically promising ideas. The first decade of synthesizers were one-note-at-a-time beasts.# For my own original music that was fine, rather like writing for an orchestra, which I already enjoyed doing. But for transcriptions of other music, what music would be ideal? I was content to noodle together a few inventions by papa Bach, and thought theyÕd make a charming or amusing bit of electronic music box to include on an album of otherwise all new popular instrumental compositions. But that was not to be. By then IÕd met and become good friends with Rachel Elkind-Tourre, a gifted producer and fine singer with a broad range, who had remarkable ears, a real knowledge of most musical styles, and could read music to boot. I was impressed. Also, here was someone who really knew a lot of professionals in music and understood how the business actually operated. Since I had come from a pretty sheltered academic world of graduate school at ColumbiaÕs Electronic Music Center where it was easier to appear to be a Ņbig fishÓ than in the real world, I na•vely expected to impress Rachel with all the music I had done. Secretly, I hoped she would become my producer. But no, even though she thought some of the examples were interesting, she would have none of it, except for one thing: a realization of BachÕs Invention in F, done only a few months earlier. Rachel argued that she could consider producing an album of more of these realizations of BachÕs musicŃweÕd select some of his best loved pieces. It was the most sensible initial collaboration, although I was certainly too dense to see it myself. More important, she convinced me that this would be a good way to gain respect for my own music after I had demonstrated skills performing music people already knew. Although her contributions have often been overlooked, if it hadnÕt been for Rachel, literally none of this would have happened: the explosion of synthesizers just then, the eventual meeting and working with Kubrick, and all the rest. Of course the elements of luck and timing, too easy to forget, propelled the album into much greater celebrity than any of us had dreamed possible. We were still insecure about selecting the repertoire, and neither of us was expert about proper performance practice and idiomatic Baroque ornamentation. Luckily we had a musician friend, Benjamin Folkman, who could fill in all these important gaps and was familiar with recording studio equipment and procedure, too. He had already worked with me at the early Moog synthesizer IÕd finally gotten from Bob Moog, and was the motivation behind those early Bach Inventions weÕd done together, including the one in F. Initially Moog synthesizers exhibited absolutely no difference in the sound if the keys were struck hard or softly. They were not touch sensitive and like the keys on a piano. It took several months until Bob came up with a promising design and I tinkered with the mechanism to get it to feel right. In any case by the start of the year we had an instrument that was fit for the task, the only one of its kind in the world for almost ten years. Soon Rachel, Ben and I planned our attack, working long nights and weekends on the project during spring and summer of 1968. While I contributed the easier recognized tasks of the synthesis, and nearly all of the performing, often they were right there with me, or would arrive right after IÕd done a section, to help me polish it off, or even to discard parts or sometimes all of that dayÕs work. We thought alike in that regard, all got a vote, and were ruthless in tossing whatever didnÕt work, even if it had consumed ten or twelve hours to do. The next time around it always came out much better. For this new recording I sorely missed RachelÕs feedback: ŅNo, this sound is too bright, and that part there sounds like you slipped, and over here donÕt you think itÕs getting too schmaltzyŃmaybe if it were a little faster, also a little less echo?Ó. A first-rate producer, she always had a focus on the problems, while I often wallowed. And I also missed BenÕs musical, intelligent help of many kinds, and the fun the three of us had pulling off a stunt that seemed to self-ignite the further into it we got. But over the years IÕve learned how to work alone, although since I enjoy people and am a bit of a ham, I find it the most difficult part of this means of making music. I hope the next generation of electronic musicians can have a more interactive working environment. We need feedback and these days IÕm constantly bouncing things off Annemarie Franklin, who usually sees the essence of any problem when IÕm in too close. Some jobs, like composition, are probably still best done alone. But the cycles of steps to come up with a first-rate performance are helped enormously by the feedback which any acoustic ensemble takes for granted. While IÕm greatly attracted to this still-young field (after all itÕs the only way to get these wonderful new hybrid timbres using any possible alternative tuning) my first love still remains the orchestraŃI love writing for that when I can. And perhaps eventually we will have large synthesizer orchestras, too, with all its pros and cons. * Authentic Bach Tunings The smooth sounds you may notice in this recording are to a large degree the result of the tunings used. None of them is our standard equal temperament, a compromise that allows modulation into all keys, and requires only twelve notes in an octave. But along the way a lot was sacrificed. Musicians have remained rather timid about trying out the alternatives, probably believing the myths that anything microtonal sounds weird and out-of-tune. The few pioneers who do venture into these waters get treated with disdain by a majority who exhibit surprisingly little tolerance or curiosity in this area. What is everyone so afraid of? Until recently it was certainly difficult to sample any of the many alternatives. Everything was built or pretuned to fit the sole standard. Physical instruments drift in pitch, too, so finer nuances are hard to maintain. In the last several years thatÕs changed to a large degree. The majority of the newer, digitally driven musical instruments can be quickly tuned into anything you want to try, and will dependably stay that way. Or you can call it up quickly at a later date. The computer inside doesnÕt care, itÕs just as easy as equal temperament, just one set of numbers versus any other set. There are magazines, newsletters and clubs of people who are interested in the adventure of exploring alternative tunings, feeling perhaps that the standard path is so well worn as to have little new and wonderful to discover. I hope that listening to the unusually pure harmonies herein will stimulate many of you to take a first step along some road less well trodden.# This album is among a very few to use the authentic tunings of the Baroque period in which Bach lived and worked. Musicians didnÕt keep complete records then any better than they do now, so many specific details have been lost. We do have enough evidence from both theorists of the time and BachÕs letters to be able to reproduce most tunings that were commonly used during this period. Herein you will hear examples of two kinds of tuning. First thereÕs Circular. Here the sharp keys are forced to merge, circle-like, into the flat keys after only twelve notes. As in equal temperament F# becomes the same pitch as Gb. Think of a snake biting its own tail. BachÕs Well-Tempered Clavier was composed for this type of tuning.# Each key has a different sound, usually giving the keys near C major a much smoother sound, at the expense of more distant keys, like C# minor. Natural harmonic intervals donÕt fit so neatly into a closed circle. If you go around using any perfectly tuned interval you will never double back, but instead follow an open helix. Think of the strands of DNA, a double helix. Many of the best sounding tuning systems are built up that way, like Meantone Temperament, which was the big favorite through BachÕs time. It does require more than twelve notes to modulate everywhere. Bach, who was also a first-rate tuner and theorist, would often reach in and retune a couple of notes to better favor a key about to be used. ItÕs exactly what IÕve done for this recording. So our second kind of tuning for these performances is Meantone. There are several varieties of Meantone. ItÕs interesting that the oldest, which had the purest harmonies,# isnÕt the one Bach himself used and recommended.# He insisted that the major thirds be made Ņa little sharp from just.Ó While he was willing to compromise the purity of his triads somewhat, he wasnÕt willing to sacrifice them as much as is done in equal temperament. ThereÕs good evidence that he thought the variation of consonance from key to key in circular tunings# was a good thing, and exploited the differences with his famous 24 Preludes and Fugues. This albumÕs new performances provide a mix of several varieties of both Meantone and Circular tunings. I tried to pick the key or center point for each to best fit the modulations required. Meantone fit very well with all of the slower music, and whenever there were clear harmonic passages that didnÕt modulate too broadly. In other cases where a quick tempo# or far reaching harmonic movement made Meantone less valuable, a Circular tuning was used. (A mention of the particular tuning used is given within the descriptions of each of the musical selections.) * The Music Happy 25th, S-OB There was a certain festive feeling in putting together this new recording, one that seemed to cry out for an appropriate introduction. I came up with the theme to this short anniversary greeting parody late one night when just climbing into bed (yes, that happens often, dammit.) So I had to scribble down the theme and counter theme before turning out the light. The next day the sketch still looked very promising, and within a couple hourÕs work it developed as an affable interpretation of BachÕs musical style, one short enough not to outstay its welcome. The tuning is in 1/5th comma Meantone centered on D, although it goes by so fast you canÕt savor this marvelous tuning as well as in other examples on this recording. Sinfonia in D to Cantata #29 IÕve always liked this SinfoniaÕs triumphant good cheer, be it in its original version for solo violin, or in this later transcription of BachÕs for organ and a small ensemble of 2 oboes, 3 trumpets, timpani and strings. That means this realization is a transcription of a transcription, one in which IÕve tried to keep the accompaniment somewhat acoustic, while adding hybrid blends of synth voices reminiscent of several favorite Moog patches. The solo is bright and complex-percussive, and I took advantage of the ability to ŅhocketÓ the solo line over four tracks, bouncing it from track to track, unlike the fixed central position necessary in the original version when we ran out of tracks. I was able to play the solo in several very long takes, so the phrasing flows spontaneously as is seldom possible with hocketing, when each note goes to a different instrument or voice. ItÕ s always appealing to have your cake and eat it, too. The tuning is Circular, centered on D, except the trumpets, which use a natural harmonic scale in D. Air on a G String I never forget that on the original version of this well known Air from the Suite in D, we were trying to come up with the sound of a woodwind quintet (Bach wrote it for string ensemble.) That simply wasnÕt possible with the limited palette of best old analog machines, although I came up with the subtlest timbres on the first album. You may enjoy hearing how closely it can be done today. Thus this is the only selection on the album which deliberately mimics a traditional acoustic recording, down to the room simulations and perspectives. ExceptŃit would be very difficult to get traditional instruments to perform in perfect 1/5th comma Meantone centered on A, as is done here. Listen to the extra smoothness of the harmonies this adds, that the early recording, which was barely in equal temperament, (yuk, how the pitch drifted, minute by minute!), could not have produced. Two Part Invention in F This was the first Bach selection done on the earlier recording, and had been recorded with two mono tape machines, sound-on-sound style, final result in glorious mono. I later tried to create an ersatz stereo effect for our original releaseÕs master, but was never satisfied with it, particularly the awkward way it ended, without a hint of graceful idiomatic ritard. For this new version I got the performances of the two parts ŅnailedÓ monitoring with a simple piano sound. But then I let the transfer to multitrack Ņgo crazyÓ a little, with swirling constant shifts of timbre and perspective, and a vertiginous four channel chase of one part by the other, all around the room! The tempo here is breathlessly fast to the limits of good taste, so a Circular tuning was ideal, no lush harmonies to dwell on here. Two Part Invention in Bb This ingenious invention marks the first selection on this recording to redistribute the melodic phrases over several imaginary solo instruments placed about the room, so that position and timbre change from phrase to phrase, question and answer style. ItÕs done in a quieter way that the continual shifting that goes on in the preceding Invention. Some of the colors deliberately tried to capture the flavor of some favorite Moog patches, but here they have a subtler, down-played complexity, so that there might be more to discover on repeated hearings. Since the tempo isnÕt exceedingly fast, and the key center remains fairly narrow, Meantone was an ideal choice of tuning, one centered on F fitting the best. Two Part Invention in d The only minor-key invention on this recording, this performance tries to stress a theatrical quality, with several sudden contrasting colors and positioning, within the limits of only two voice parts. Paired with the one in F, this Invention acts like the other bookend surrounding the gentler one in Bb. In the transfer to tape stage I used a combination of the methods from the first two inventions, trying to form a consistent set for the three of them. Once again the tuning is Meantone, if for nothing better than to add richness to that last chord. Jesu, Joy of ManÕs Desiring This Chorale Prelude from Cantata #147 is one of the first of BachÕs compositions I heard as a kid, as it was used to close the broadcasting day for one of my favorite FM stations. It retains a personal quality for me to this day. I tried to give it a very human interpretation, not too fast, not too slow, while combining the flavors of an imagined church organ and choir, perhaps more out of DisneyÕs Fantasia (and why not?), than any religious context. The solo part has mild stereo hocketing throughout, and its harmonies are formed with two other string-horn hybrid parts. The idea was to be complex, but not let any of it dominate. Then the SATB choir parts combine three ideas melded in equal balance: thereÕs a slow-growth sound of idealized brass, a fairly imitative formant replica of human voices, plus an element reminiscent of the tuned white-noise effect I used in the first album. I like the way the combination is all three of these and yet none of them. The tuning is Meantone, to make all harmonies silken smooth. Prelude #7 in Eb Oddly enough, this is the one selection on this recording which was particularly difficult for the new instrumentation. The wonderfully deliberate slow accumulation of BachÕs introduction and double-fugue really requires a very controlled series of slow attack instruments, with the brightness on each carefully shaped at all times, just like a good brass ensemble would do it. But that requires a lot of continuous brightness control, which most of my current MIDI instruments donÕt do easily. Instead I used my clean sounding Synton Vocoder on all the main solo lines, shaping the brightness from the excellent SY77. That let me play each line very expressively, and be able to impose the expressivity on all the voice elements, building highly sophisticated timbres, all of which perfectly followed the individual solo lines. Again, Meantone was an ideal tuning for this gorgeous composition, and it really pays off at the climax. Fugue #7 in Eb This companion, contrasting fugue for three voices has an architecture that suggested a subtle interplay of lightly contrasting colors. Aside from two brief spots where tuned white-noise conjures up a memory of our first recording, I tried to be much more adventurous in the other timbres of this realization. As a performer I found it a great relief to be able to take full advantage of how much better the new methods can capture the important old values of phrasing, ensemble interplay, and human gesture, things which often had to be ŅfakedÓ in the original performances. The ambience is broad and always shifting, and the piece again lends itself well to a variation of Meantone tuning. Prelude #2 in c For the first recording we tried to make this, the central work, the most outrageous sounding cut, or at least most surprising of the record. That sounded still like a good ideaŃthus this new version. A few years ago, for Beauty In The Beast, I constructed several Balinese Gamelan replicas, and learned how to tune them and play them. BachÕs prelude here is a very similar construction to much gamelan music, with its repeating, interlocking patterns and sequences, all played at a good brisk clip, until the bass-line interjection near the end sends the remainder scurrying about. The translation to an East Asian setting may seem irreverent, but it all goes by with such a blast of ensemble sound, with a performance that was intentionally very wiry and elastic, that for me the whole thing seems just right. At such a tempo as this one, a Circular tuning was fine, inasmuch as Pelog or Slendro (authentic Java-Bali scales) would have been impossible for the harmonic content of BachÕs music. Fugue #2 in c Since we just set ourselves up with a percussion ensemble, this companion fugue for three voices contains a reference to that world. But here the instruments are western style percussion, like xylophone, marimba, celesta and piano. Each is made into a hybrid by adding a recreation of several analog synth patches. These are then shifted back and forth, from one dominating to the other. The process adds a veiled ŅklangfarbenmelodieÓ (timbre-melody), which further highlights the outline of BachÕs themes. The Circular tuning in C matches the previous prelude. Wachet Auf This Chorale Prelude from Cantata #140 does so much with just three simple parts, that itÕs difficult to alter it in any way without ruining the performance. Since the texture remains thin, itÕs well-suited to several very involved timbres, but IÕve tried to keep them restrained. The dominant treble part contains the most involved sounds, a slightly percussive blend of colors placed in stereo over four tracks, with a continual left-right interplay. The Bass voice is simpler, not quite so percussive, and uses two timbres in stereo. In between these two parts appears the tenor solo, which is performed here on brass sounds, spread over three tracks, each tuned slightly apart for a Ņchoral-toneÓ effect, the only element here similar to the original recordÕs treatment (I liked it then, I like it now.) The tuning is Meantone, centered on F although the piece is in Eb. Brandenburg Concerto #3, in G This is the longest composition on the record, and certainly the most orchestral. Bach wrote it for an ensemble of ten strings: three each of violins, viole and Ōcelli, bass and the usual continuo. This represents a fairly large Baroque group, especially with all the independence of the part writing, which is absolutely wonderful, but it placed distinct constraints on how I could transcribe it here. The Moog synthesizer had a surprisingly narrow timbre range, and aside from blundering by using too many rich, thick, bright colors (which might sound great in solo spots but would turn into a blurry stew in this kind of music), the choices were easier. Using the fairly large MIDI setup in my current studio and all the timbral resources they make available, it would be fatally tempting to load up a performance like this with an annoying mass of clashing, contrasting colors, losing one of the hallmarks of a good synth realization: clarity of part. (Of course I did do this at first and had to toss out a weekÕs work. Sometimes we never learnÉ) But I found out that as long as I kept to within certain bounds, there was no need to make the colors stingy and limited, just to be sure that the more exuberant of them were retained for wherever a line was momentarily the solo, and return to smoother voices otherwise. The lower parts in particular couldnÕt be too bright until they were the soloist, for the same reason. While playing the music into my Mac I auditioned with a simple piano and strings combination, procrastinating the timbral decisions until the transfer onto digital multitrack. But that phase turned into a mammoth project, since I took the opportunity to vary each partÕs timbre gradually from measure to measure, even note to note. It reminded me a lot of the older way I worked, placing individual phrases and notes on tape like a jigsaw puzzle, until the final result had a liveliness impossible to achieve in any easy way. Bach left us a riddle on this Brandenburg: the so-called ŅmissingÓ slow movement. For a second movement there appears in the score only two chords of a phrygian cadence, with the indication, Adagio, above the single measureŃa slow movement just one measure long? But no, Bach obviously intended the harpsichordist to improvise a short cadenza, a contrast to the string color of the outer movements. When we performed the piece on the first album we did what you do when youÕ re young and enthusiastic: a flamboyant fantasia, the music based largely on BachÕs Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue, adding in wild electronic effects inspired by the electronic music cliches of the 50Õs and 60Õs. It clashed within the context of the two outer movements, but it was a lot of fun to do. When completing the Brandenburg collection in the late Ō70Õs I went to the other extreme, and came up with a cautious, stately, keyboard-based movement imitative of one of BachÕs more somber styles. How does the old saying goŃif youÕre not a liberal in your 20Õs you have no heart, and a conservative in your 40Õs, or you have no head? Well I got there in my 30Õ s, and now have thankfully moved on in whatever it is we are supposed to approach as we get older: a more balanced point of view that may with luck eventually touch wisdom. In the long run neither of the two extremes really worked. One afternoon a few years ago while raiding the cookie jar (actually a cookie bag) for something to munch on while working, the opening to this two voice theme just Ņdrifted down,Ó and I was unable to get rid of it. So I began to write it down, developing it into something longer. And IÕve just grown very fond of the damn thing, and realized it would have to become the missing movement here, one that IÕve had the nerve to dedicate to his memory. HeÕs been very good to me, so I hope heÕd not be too insulted at my cheek. The only cut on the first recording that I was intimidated about redoing was the concertoÕs third movement. After all, it was the last thing we did then, and was the most polished. Fortunately IÕve still not yet listened to the first recording as I write these notes, since I wanted to avoid reacting to or doing a mere copy of the original. I took my time in coming up with what felt like my best performance on its own, using some of the methods described above. It was several months and an intervening film project before I finally got back to converting that stored performance into real sounds on the master multitrack. By then I could feel almost as a conductor of someone elseÕs playing, and have some fun adding little details all along the transfer stage of the outer movements, which lasted about a month each. Also there was much less ŅpainÓ if when listening to a completed section I found a spot that had a miscalculation of any kind. I just went back and changed whatever, and again let my Mac play out the single part, poking it exactly into the proper few seconds on the master tape. So I could really get the master right, and there was nothing left for that old bargain with the devil, ŅletÕs fix it in the mix!Ó The Brandenburg uses a few versions of Meantone tuning, including twice where it had to be altered on the fly by re-tuning for several measures, a luxury Bach would not have had. But, hey, it allowed all to be gorgeously Ņ in tuneÓ as no equal tempered performance can ever be. Toccata and Fugue in d While IÕve received many requests for more Bach interpretations, leading eventually to the present recording, the one composition that has been most often requested is this grand Toccata and Fugue for organ. Back in the mid Ō70Õs I first decided to try my hand at doing a realization for it, and found it tougher than it looked. DonÕt forget, in those days the only practical way to synchronize many tracks of monophonic voices was with some sort of click track. That worked for most of Bach, and indeed, would have been adequate for the fugue portion of this work. But the Toccata really requires a much freer approach. So I made several attempts at playing out a clean, neat real tempo performance, and then laboriously placing in the taps of an electronic wood block, to turn this into a click track, as I had done on the cadenza for the 5th Brandenburg. I started to layout the parts and recorded the first page and a half. But the results were simply not fluid enough, and the sounds much too ŅsynthyÓ, and boring to continue. The technology has finally advanced enough to allow another try. I played the music into my Mac monitoring with a couple of realistic pipe organ stops. Then I edited it to remove some of the natural variations of loudness of individual notes, reshaping them by hand, note-by-note, into the curves an organÕs expression pedal would produce. During the final editing and polishing phase I consulted with several other musicians, including our friend, Stephen Temmer, who had often played the piece, and could warn me of many pitfalls that beginning organists make (and I was doing). I wanted it to be an idiomatic, honest performance even at this pre-synth timbre stage, and with the help I got, I think it holds up quite well. BachÕs music here seldom gets thicker than three parts, often only two, so this was the best chance of the album to use more obviously complex and effect-laden sounds, including replicas of many acoustic instruments from all over. Hints of human voices and especially big pipe organ timbres are blended in at important moments. This was also a perfect vehicle to use the radically sound-in-motion ŅhocketingÓ quality with constantly changing surround-sound acoustic perspectives I wanted to do back in the Ō70Õs. But now, done as a separate process after the lines had all been played in continuous fashion, the bits and pieces remain melded together as a musical whole, instead of a schitzy patchwork. Bach would have most likely had his organ tuned into one of the varieties of ŅWellÓ temperaments such as those developed by Kirnberger and Werkmeister. IÕve chosen the mathematically optimized Circular one used earlier. At the end the music gets smoother and more consonant as it approaches the tonic, and reaches its final sublime cadence, a perfect Ņ EncoreÓ for this 25th Anniversary Edition. I hope you enjoy it! ŃWendy Carlos New York City February 1992 _____ ¦ _____ * About Dolby SurroundŃ Ever since 1970 IÕve usually mixed my music onto four tracks, later reduced to an optimal two-track stereo. Aside from a flurry of quadraphonic systems in the early 70Õs, there has been no way to release four channels in a consumer format. Fortunately, in the last few years there has been increasing interest in the Dolby Surround format, originally developed for films by Ioan Allen and his group at Dolby Labs. While this isnÕt a true four channel format, it is a very practical compatible method of producing a wrap-around sound field. With that in mind, I mastered this recording onto four discrete channels in a left, center, right, surround configuration, and then encoded that digital master using the latest Dolby equipment. Masters made according to the rigid Dolby specifications naturally provide a wonderful regular stereo playback, with nothing lost or compromised. When played through a Dolby Pro-logic decoder, the results approach true four channels, and you can enjoy a heightened breadth and perspective, as the music dances around the room, exposing with clarity BachÕs brilliant counterpoint. (Tip: with a Pro-logic system and center speaker, try placing the left and right speakers out fairly wide, and a bit towards the sides, for an improved wrap-around effect.) CreditsŃ Produced and engineered by Wendy Carlos Logistic and polymorphic support by Annemarie Franklin * Equipment UsedŃ No, thereÕs not a single Moog synthesizer sound on this 25th Anniversary recording. Well, thatÕs not completely true; thereÕs exactly one, and itÕs plainly audible, not particularly buried. But I leave it as an exercise for the curious to locate (heh, heh, hehÉ) As for the music producing, storage and editing equipment, for those interested in these matters, hereÕs the list: Apple Macintosh IIfx computer, 16 meg RAM, 80 meg built-in HD „ Micronet SB-1000NP 1 gigabyte HD with NuPort SCSI Accelerator Card „ E-Machines Z21 IQ 21Ó greyscale monitor „ Apple 13Ó RGB color monitor and 8„24 GC Card „ Kensington Trackball „ DigidesignÕs ProTools 4-track audio card, software and interface „ Akai ADAM DR1200 Digital Multitrack with Custom Audio Interface „ Audio + Design Digi-4 Four-track Digital Processing Unit „ Two Sony EDV-9500 ED Beta recorders for above, with Custom Interface „ Panasonic SV-3700 DAT Recorder „ Mark of the UnicornÕs Performer and Two MIDI Time Pieces „ OpcodeÕs DX/TX Librarian Software „ Fostex 4010 SMPTE Reader/Generator „ Two DK Synergy Synthesizers „ Three Mulogix Slave 32s „ HP 9825B Computer for Synergy/Slave 32 Tuning Tables „ Three Kurzweil FS 150 Additive Synthesizers „ Four Kurzweil 1000 Synthesizers: SX, AX+, HX, PX+ „ Kurzweil MIDI Board v. 3 „ Yamaha TX 802 Synthesizer „ Yamaha SY77 Digital Synthesizer „ Boss BL-1 Bulk Librarian for SY77 Tuning Tables „ JLCooper Mix Mate, FaderMaster, Expression Plus and MSB+ „ ART DR-1 Digital Reverberator „ AMS dmx 15-80S Digital Delay and Processor „ EMT 140st Stereo Reverberation Plate „ Lexicon PCM 42 Digital Delay „ Lexicon CP-1 Cinema Processor „ Custom Mixing Console: 18/6 „ Roland M-160 Mixer „ Synton SPX 216 Vocoder „ Three Phase Linear 1000 AutoCorrelators „ Three Symetrix 511 & 511A Dynamic Noise Filters „ Aphex Aural Exciter Type C „ t.c. Electronics TC 2240 Stereo Equalizer „ Two ITI #MEP-230 Stereo Parametric Equalizers „ Four Klipschorn Cornwall Monitors „ One Klipsch Heresy Monitor „ Four Pinnacle PN5+ Surround Monitors „ Two Velodyne ULD-12 Servo Subwoofers „ Two TOA Model P-75D Stereo Power Amps „ Four Marantz A1 Power Amps „ Onkyo A-8150 Stereo Power Amp * Special Thanks toŃ (Alphabetically): Ioan Allen, John Chez, Jim Cooper and Jim Cooper, Michael diCosmo, Larry Fast, Peter Gotcher, Glenn Harrsch, Dominic Milano, Johnny Reinhard, Daniel Rose, Gus Skinas, Stephen Temmer, Robert Woods, and to all of you who have supported my work over the years. _____ ¦ _____ --Copyright © 1992 Wendy Carlos & Telarc