Jumping out of the Nest with Bach's Trio Sonatas

As I’ve previously noted, one of the good things about my current period of unemployment is that I’ve been able to take advantage of access to a couple practice instruments and really dive into learning a bunch of repertoire solely for myself, rather than under the stress of preparing for a competition or high-pressure recital. More often than not, I’ve noticed that I leave my practice sessions with higher spirits and the sense of having accomplished something — a rarity in other parts of what has become a monotonous daily routine (working part-time delivering groceries, lazing around, and trying my best to keep my body and brain relatively active)! 

Recently, I just put finishing touches on Bach’s Trio Sonata No. 1 in E flat major- ironically the final one I’ve learned of the six in the set. Being able now to pronounce that I’ve officially learnt all 18 of these movements feels great! It’s been gratifying to tie up other “loose ends” in my repertoire, like finishing Franck’s Trois Pièces and working through other collections, too. It’s still bittersweet, though, to finish the Trio Sonatas (BWV 525-530), and it’s given me a chance to look back at my journey with each one:

I started by learning the slow middle movement of Trio No. 2, which I had the opportunity to perform in my capacity as Organ Scholar at the Saint Thomas Girl Course, when I was still in high school. I played it on the Loening-Hancock Organ in the gallery before one of our weekday evensongs, and unfortunately I seem to remember nerves getting the best of me for much of it- oh well! After that, I worked with my high school organ teacher to learn all of Trio No. 4. The sixth trio was a project during my first year of undergraduate studies at Eastman with Professor Porter; it provided a much-needed wake-up call with regards to touch and technique. At this point I didn’t feel quite so warmly towards Bach’s famous pedagogical tool for his son as I do now — wisdom comes with age and experience! After a respite of a few years, I jumped back in to the world of trio sonatas during my year as Organ Scholar in Truro with No. 3 - I remember realizing how unique an experience it probably is to learn a trio sonata on a Father Willis organ…! No. 3 also got a bit of TLC with Professor Higgs at Eastman during the first year of my MMus. This left the second, fifth, and first sonatas. I decided to learn the remaining two movements of No. 2 as I whiled away the hours of Lockdown #1 in Peterborough and later in Colchester (many thanks go to those who allowed me access to the Walker organ at St Leonard-at-the-Hythe), and I managed to finally learn No. 5 and No. 1 here in Evanston over the past couple of months.

The opening of Bach’s first Trio Sonata, as notated in his hand in P 271 (see the Bach Digital Archive for more)

Bach’s Organ Sonatas are subjects of a lot of undue grumbling in many organ departments; as mentioned earlier, they provide a chance for a teacher to implement a tabula rasa and re-mold a student’s technique into something healthier and more practical. However, over the past decade, I’ve grown to find these pieces very attractive. No matter how many times one has to sit through a performance of them in studio class every week, or practice them for hours at a time, under-speed and with an unforgiving metronome, I think the music is beautiful and charismatic. And even better, I’ve found that unlike with more nuanced French, English, and modern repertoire, there is a formulaic approach to learning the music that always works in the end, even if it takes AGES. It’s nothing too surprising: one hand at a time with pedal, hands together without pedal, slooow practice, rhythmic (dotted and un-dotted) practice, and more, until at some point it just clicks! And this feeling, when your brain is finally able to keep track of all of the moving parts, when your individual body is producing the musical parts that were perhaps originally meant to be mastered by three or four musicians - it’s quite a high. The rush of being able to relax as you play something that a week or two earlier made you pull out your hair is very special, indeed. Now, having learned all of the sonatas, it feels almost as if I’ve run out of my stash of some illicit drug; but thankfully, this high can be achieved from other pieces of music out there, too! 

There’s also a definite sense of satisfaction, knowing that I can sit down and play most of these tricky movements again without having to spend too much time working them back up. It’s a wonderful benefit of learning things carefully the first time around.

Part of the triumph I feel from learning so much repertoire these days (not solely Bach’s sonatas) is connected to what I’ve perceived as my recent (somewhat late) transition into musical adulthood. Perhaps in part due to the set-up of the American conservatory system, I emerged from my six years of study with a very real dependence on getting a teacher’s “okay” before considering a piece of music fully learned. This is fair - so much of our canon comprises compositions whose performance are accompanied by factoids and anecdotes about the proper style of fingering, temperament, registration, rubato- the list goes on and on. After spending a whole semester, if not an entire year, on one single concert program, working through a piece’s every possible intricacy of phrasing, timing, mood, and technique, it makes sense that something resembling fear may accompany a student’s first flight out of the proverbial nest into the world of professor-less learning. This has been only my individual experience, and I’m sure much of it is due to my own propensity for insecurity and anxiety. I can see how easy it may be to be drawn into a larger commitment (say, a DMA/DMus), perhaps more for the purpose of postponing the “real world” and accompanying loss of immediate and convenient musical guidance, rather than in pursuit of more specialized research. 

When deciding whether or not to pursue a doctorate, I had to give myself some tough love; I was supposed to be a *Master* of Music by now, and I had been blessed with excellent professors at Eastman who, like any good teacher, taught me to teach myself. The Eastman Organ Department puts a lot of weight into healthy technique and careful research, and when equipped with these tools, many musical problems become more easily solvable. 

Thankfully, the experience of a cathedral organ scholar doesn’t allow for too much of this kind of overthinking, when it comes to learning repertoire and accompaniments. You’re far too busy, with too hefty a volume of music to internalize, to spend time wringing your hands over every possible aspect of musical interpretation. I’m not saying that careful preparation of music loses its value; only that sometimes you just have to grit your teeth, make an executive decision, and get on with it. The Assistant DoM may not always have the time to go over every single accompaniment before rehearsal for that day’s Evensong, and eventually, you get better at taking risks, learning from mistakes as needed, and taking ownership of your own musicianship and artistic decisions, without too much second-guessing.

It’s freeing to be able to sit down and register something on the fly at a familiar organ (i.e., using only divisionals or hand registering), if the circumstances require it, though this sort of situation is not ideal (and should be only a rarity in one’s capacity as an OS)! However, successfully navigating such a pressurized performance helps build lots of confidence in oneself. 

The marriage of my experiences as an Eastman organ student and my two stints as a cathedral organ scholar, combined with the pandemic’s generous gift of free-time for intensive organ practice, has helped me come into my own as a player. My technique is solid now (far more so than over ten years ago, when I first performed that trio sonata so sloppily at Saint Thomas), my learning is informed by historical writings and convention, and I have a genuine love for the music itself. I’m grateful that, as we enter the second year of the Covid-19 crisis, I still have a real hunger for learning new music, and that my training helps me hold myself to a high standard of performance. In this time of general emptiness, I’ve found nothing quite so edifying as the ability to broaden my repertoire and totally lose myself while in “practice mode.”