Brad Mehldau, piano
(released May 10, 2024, Nonesuch)
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I was very excited when I heard that Brad Mehldau was releasing a new album devoted to Bach – now that it’s out, I can report that After Bach II is wonderful for fans of Mehldau, fans of J.S. Bach, and listeners in between. This album (mostly) uses the formula of its 2018 predecessor After Bach — Mehldau first faithfully plays Bach compositions on piano, then uses those performances as a starting point for his own compositions or improvisations. Above all, what I find deeply satisfying about After Bach II is the dialogue it creates with Bach’s music, which becomes both the object of our appreciation and an inspiration for new music that reconfigures Bach’s ideas for here and now.
After Bach II opens with a Mehldau composition, “Prelude to Prelude,” which frankly reminded me more of Schumann than Bach but also brings the right touch of lyricism and whimsy. After two “straight” readings of preludes from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Mehldau performs his “After Bach: Toccata.” Mehldau’s ideas here are fascinating – over this composition’s almost 15 minutes, the tempo modulates several times while Mehldau plays patterns from Prelude No. 6 that unspool the dissonance locked in Bach’s writing and find a connection between Baroque music and minimalism. Other highlights: Mehldau’s patient reading of the Haydn-like Partita for Keyboard No. 4; his wistful “Intermezzo” which transitions from Bach’s Fugue No. 20 in A Minor, and above all, rewrites of the Goldberg Variations (I’ll get to that in a minute). As observed by both All About Jazz and The Guardian of 2018’s After Bach, Mehldau does not play “jazzed up” versions but instead creates an extension of Bach’s sound world that encourages you to appreciate the power of Bach’s originals and the invention of Mehldau’s contributions; both elements feel like a unified whole, which makes After Bach II a very seamless and satisfying album to play (and play on repeat).
But I’m burying the lede: After Bach II features seven Mehldau improvisations on the Goldberg Variations, and they are fantastic! Mehldau programs these Goldbergs near the end of After Bach II – so make sure to catch them – skip right to them if you must. Rather than play Bach’s score and then perform variations, Mehldau improvised his own reharmonizations that notably use modern time signatures. Variation III is especially wonderful – it’s in 7/4 time and puts the right-hand line in a bright, dancing syncopation. Variation V, which Mehldau calls “Jazz,” reminded me a bit of the jazz/classical mashups of Nicolai Kasputin, with jazz harmonies cascading up and down the keyboard. That variation segues without interruption into what Mehldau calls “a high-energy finale,” which displays virtuosic ideas and energy in both hands. Mehldau really goes for broke with his take on the Goldbergs; they are short, dazzling runs of pianistic brilliance that form a 20-minute suite with one foot in Bach’s world and one in ours. What a blast!
I’ve been playing Mehldau’s improvised variations over and over, but hearing only seven out of the 30 variations that comprise the whole of the Goldbergs may leave you wanting more. To get your fix, I can recommend pianist Dan Tepfer. I knew some of Tepfer’s music from seeing him with alto player Lee Konitz a few years ago. Tepfer played in Konitz’s bands for over ten years and had a special connection with Konitz that you could hear immediately. Like Konitz, Tepfer has a strong identity as a player, a gift for melody, and is a fearless improviser. Tragically, Konitz died from COVID-19 in 2020, so to hear the magic of Tepfer’s piano with Konitz, you can check out the 2018 recording Decade. For more excellent Tepner in a jazz setting, I recommend the radiant piano and sax duets on last year’s co-leader date with Miguel Zenon, Internal Melodies.
Only knowing this “jazz” side to Tepfer’s music, I was happily surprised to learn about Tepfer and Bach. I discovered that Tepfer has been recording and performing Bach for over 15 years and has an especially deep rapport with the Goldbergs. In his essay “Doing In Backwards,” Tepfer explains that he learned piano by playing Bach, but because he made a professional career as a jazz improviser, there was initially no crossover between his classical and jazz playing. Then, in a flash of inspiration during a grueling solo piano tour in 2008, Tepfer injected some of the Goldbergs into a free jazz recital. Tepfer states, “I walked off stage feeling that something special had happened. So I tried it again the next night. Bach’s genius suddenly struck me, hard: instead of panning for gold dust in a cold and barren stream, which is how it increasingly felt to make improvisations up out of nothing, using the Goldbergs as inspiration was like starting with a giant gold nugget in my hand.”
Dan Tepfer, piano
(released November 8, 2011, Sunnyside)
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From that point, Tepfer worked on playing the Goldbergs and improvising on them in parallel to his jazz playing. This practice produced the 2011 Sunnyside album Goldberg Variations/Variations, in which Tepfer created studio performances of each Bach variation followed by an improvisation on that variation. The 2011 Variations/Variations is a fascinating laboratory for the contemporary possibilities of improvising on Bach – each of the 30 variations has its own strategy for how to make a fresh musical statement, and the effect is enthralling. When you’ve heard Bach’s music played faithfully over and over, Tepfer playing Bach’s originals and his improvisations side by side makes you hear the music anew. There’s nothing frivolous about improvising in Bach in this way — the intention of understanding Bach more deeply and bringing his music more fully into the present is loud and clear.
But Tepfer kept working on the Goldbergs and, by his account, got better at playing them and creating his own variations. Tepfer states that while touring after his 2011 album, he challenged himself to play the whole Goldbergs from memory live, which he had been unable to do in the studio. This dedication to Bach’s variations has made Tepfer a uniquely compelling interpreter of Bach. Classical critic Anthony Tommasini wrote a glowing review of Tepfer’s performance of the Goldbergs at Le Poisson Rouge in 2013. In a video from a 2015 Madrid performance of the Goldbergs, you can experience how compelling Tepfer’s concept is live. It has my highest recommendation.
More recently, Tepfer posted a 2020 YouTube video playing all the Goldbergs and his improvised variations in an uninterrupted recital. Tepfer commendably makes this a “warts band all” performance where there are some mistakes, but more than compensated by the excitement of the exploration and invention. This video and the 2015 Madrid concert confirm the degree to which Tepfer is creating in the moment when he improvises on Bach – the ideas he uses for his own “variations” are often quite novel and different in each version. I love all these performances – I’ve been playing Tepfer’s Goldbergs for days and find new insights from his improvisations with each listen.
And yet, there’s more! Tepfer has also done another investigation of Bach, where he uses technology to create versions of the Goldbergs which are inversions of the music – a mirror image where the notes are played in the opposite direction. Tepfer calls this project “#BachUpsideDown.” At Tepfer’s website, he’s collected videos where he performs the pieces “right side up” and then uses a player piano to perform the notes inverted. The results are stimulating and again give a fresh insight into well-worn music. Anthony Tommasini, obviously a fan, writes about this project here, calling the results “wonderfully” disorienting. Tepfer has also expanded on his Bach playing with his Inventions/Reinventions, where he takes Bach’s 15 keyboard Inventions and adds nine of his own improvisations, each in a different key, that complete an exploration of all 24 major and minor keys. The New York Times – Anthony Tommasini again – writes, “he is honoring Bach by going all out in creating a conversation with him.” Tepfer’s on tour now in Germany with live performances of his Inventions – if you have the chance to see this music live, don’t miss it!
With their explorations of Bach, Mehldau and Tepfer show the value of the improviser’s approach to classics written over 250 years ago. The point is not to “jazz up” or a ridiculous attempt to “improve” Bach but instead to find new ways into timeless music and a fresh appreciation of its potential in a new context. It’s well known that Bach was an improviser himself, and part of the vitality of Bach’s keyboard works is how close the notes on the page are to improvisation – something that was done in Bach’s day through ornamentation and in the cadenzas of the concertos. Mehldau and Tepfer are simply taking the next step, one that an improviser like Bach would do if he were alive today. What’s surprising is that improvising on Bach is not done more often.