It is a very luxurious replacement for Luc Beauséjour, convalescent, who honors the Harpsichord season in concert with his visit on Sunday to the Bourgie Hall. Benjamin Alard, who is in the process of constructing on disc a complete set of Bach’s keyboard works of historical significance, will travel specifically to play in Montreal.
Those who were at Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours church on Friday February 22, 2008 have undoubtedly not forgotten him. A young musician then barely known, the harpsichordist Benjamin Alard performed the Goldberg Variations. “Benjamin Alard is an apparition […]. By apparition, I mean someone who doesn’t seem to be operating in the same world. […] This musician, at 22, performs the Goldberg as Giulini, at 75, led the Mass in B. It’s strange ; It’s truly astonishing,” we wrote at the time.
In the room, many musicians seemed to have agreed to also witness this blossoming. Benjamin Alard remembers this moment: “It was the first time I crossed the Atlantic. I went to California, to San Diego, then to Quebec. I have very good memories of it. I stayed with Olivier Fortin, played on his harpsichord and gave a concert in Rimouski. I had met Dom Laberge, with whom I remained in contact. It was the starting point for a certain number of meetings. »
Benjamin Alard himself does not hesitate to go and hear his colleagues, “rather, in general, fairly young people, who are just starting out. I find it exciting and interesting to hear what you’ve never heard before.” Obviously, for the person playing, it’s tricky to know their counterparts in the audience. “I remember that Bernard Lagacé had me hand over his recording of Goldberg Variations by someone from the organization, responsible for the message: “Mr. Lagacé is here and gives you his disc.” » Benjamin Alard has very amused memories of it today. Fortunately, he knew how to keep his cool!
During the concert Instrumental party by BachSunday at Bourgie Hall at 2:30 p.m., Benjamin Alard, associated with the Cobalt Quartet, flautist Grégoire Jeay, harpsichordist Karl-Frédéric Bolte and double bassist Thibault Bertin-Maghit, will perform the Concerto in C major for two harpsichords BWV 1061THE 5e Brandenburg Concerto BWV 1050 and the 2e Orchestral Suite, in B minor, BWV 1067.
A thousand ways
We will find the 5e Brandenburg, in May, in volume 9 of his complete keyboard works of Bach in progress at Harmonia Mundi. It’s one of the most captivating recording ventures of the moment. The duty has spoken about it on several occasions, because it combines an intelligence in the approach, an interpretive quality in the rendering of the releases and often daring choices of instruments.
Of this complete piece, constructed calmly but diligently, Benjamin Alard says this: “I work very seriously, but I am quite detached from what the public and colleagues will think. This is what gives me this latitude. If I didn’t have it, I think I would try to enroll in something. Ultimately, the novelty, the fact of being off the beaten track with the instruments, but also the way I approach things, all of this allows me great freedom. This carries a certain risk, that of shocking and not pleasing. »
Benjamin Alard denies wanting to please. He seeks to “be connected to something” and to “play this music in a good way”, while recognizing that there are “a thousand ways to do it”. “That’s what’s interesting about recordings: there are a thousand ways and I choose one at the moment I record. But I try not to write myself into something that has already been done, because there have already been so many recordings and it wouldn’t be worth rehashing things. »
Eight parts of a complete work have therefore been published which, initially, approaches Bach chronologically. “It seemed important to me not to start at the end. I was supported at the beginning by Jean-Claude Zehnder, my teacher in Basel, who had just finished a work on the period of early youth. He helped me a lot in organizing this from the start. »
The canvas then softened. “Instruments came my way through meetings with collectors or instrument makers. These meetings guided me in certain choices. If I had decided everything in advance and stuck to it, there wouldn’t have been so much variety, twists and surprises. I indulged in what seemed most compelling to me when I encountered an instrument, even if sometimes it seemed daring — for example, going to record an instrument of a Fleming who ended up in Rome. The key word was to go as much as possible in non-excavated directions. We know a lot of instruments in Germany or the Netherlands, but the instruments I was interested in had been little explored. »
Pandemic inflection
This is how volume 5, dazzling, entitled Weimar 1708-1717: toccatas and fugues, juxtaposes compositions played on the organ, pedal harpsichord and clavichord. We described this volume as “dazzling, peremptory, sometimes visionary” in a November 2021 article entitled “Bach, great winner of the pandemic”.
In fact, the pandemic has also changed the course of the integral. “The confinements, particularly in relation to the clavichord, guided certain choices that I would not have made so quickly. I was confined with my clavichord, which I had just received. Finding myself in Normandy with members of my family with this clavichord made me want to show certain pieces that seemed to me to have meaning on this instrument,” says the musician.
This change in the course of things led Benjamin Alard to revelations: “A variety of playing, which I did not suspect before, was sparked by the clavichord. » Among the hazards, Benjamin Alard mentions a “recording session planned in Normandy during complicated periods of curfew and others”. It was simpler to consider it from the clavichord alone, and the stars aligned well. “I don’t think there’s really any coincidence in these things,” he concludes.
These audacity in the instrumental choices become a sort of “trademark” of Benjamin Alard’s complete works. But from there to imposing the clavichord, a predecessor of the pianoforte, an instrument considered rather crude and ungrateful, the bet was not won. “Most of the time people are pleasantly surprised, and that makes me happy. Colleagues even told me: “We wouldn’t have imagined that, no one thought about it.” »
There is no shortage of challenges that now await Benjamin Alard. How to make the voices heard differently and with relevance Goldberg Variations Or The art of running away ? “There is a challenge that would be to present the same work on completely different keyboard instruments: organ, clavichord or several types of harpsichords. We will have to see how the editorial side of things evolves, but perhaps we will have to design objects to present things differently. What I am telling you here concerns the Goldberg Variations. ” On The art of running away And The musical offeringthe interpreter is deep in thought and the possible solutions will certainly evolve.
His major puzzle of the hour seems to be the second book of Well-tempered keyboard : as the first book is already recorded, should we go in continuity, on the same instruments, or in opposition, looking for a different but equally convincing proposition? “I had not planned to record the first book on the Hass harpsichord [du Musée de Provins] and for the moment I don’t know yet,” confides the exploring artist. “Fortunately, Harmonia Mundi and the people who work with me understand these changes well. » The listeners too.