The Bach 2025 tour

The target
The target is to celebrate Johann Sebastian Bach 340th birthday in 2025.

The pieces
A very wide choice of Bach masterworks, introduced or not, along with other complementary pieces in order to integrate as much as possible into any concert hall ‘s general programming. 

The concerts
Very flexible concert formats aiming to adapt to every audience’s tastes and requirements. Very long or shorter format concerts, with or without prelude to the concert, within one evening or one week. Every venue determines its own program formula in the way of an all-you-can eat buffet.

The artist
One of the most recognized virtuosos who dedicates his life to widening his repertoire to pieces generally considered impossible to play on a harp, from Bach’s Goldberg Variations to Liszt’s Hungarian Rhapsodies.

The instrument
An 1821 Egan harp, or an 1832 Erard harp, depending on transportation possibilities.
Or any modern harp available to play on.

The Goldberg Variations

The complete harpsichord Partita

Complete works for Lute

Complete violin Sonata and Partita

Complete cello suites

Complete harpsichord Concerto

Chamber music 1

Chamber music 2

Sylvain Blassel, why play Beethoven on a harp?
I will answer with two extremely simple reasons that are, I think, the best in the world. First, I love Beethoven’s music. Second I love the harp. And I can certify that they work together beautifully! 

How have you organized your programs?
The work of Beethoven is huge, and I wish I could play and conduct all of it! Unfortunately, I have to make choices. I’ve guided my programs towards piano solo pieces with a little extension to chamber music with a recital with cello.
Throughout his life, Beethoven shared his different emotional states through very free thumbnails, the Kleinigkeiten (« small things »), and amongst them, the three Bagatelles books are real treasures. Variation occupies a central position for Beethoven. Whether it is in his symphonies, quartets, trios or sonatas, Beethoven is literally the king of variations and the Diabelli achieve unreached summits. Finally, among his piano writing, the 32 sonatas occupy a major position, and I have selected 9 of them within 3 concerts: three youth sonatas, three middle period sonatas and the three last “mature” sonatas.
Every recital is combined with a kind of mirror: Haydn’s last sonatas with Beethoven’s first ones, the Goldberg with the Diabelli, etc. During the Beethoven year, other Masterpieces will be necessary to avoid indigestion!

What relationship did Beethoven have with the harp?
Unfortunately, the links Beethoven had with different piano and harp makers (Franz Brunner, Sébastien Erard, Johann Andreas Stumpff) were not stimulating enough for him to write for the harp. Apart from the « six easy variations on a Swiss song », composed for the piano but published « for the Harp or the Forte-Piano » probably for commercial reasons, Beethoven has written only one piece for the harp, in the adagio of the creatures Prometheus. And as was often the case at that time, the way the instrument was used is, you have to face it, more linked to the image the harp had than to the instrument itself. But one shouldn’t forget that the mechanism of the harp was still quite basic until around 1810. As a consequence, Beethoven’s deafness prevented him from grasping the qualities brought by the numerous innovations. What he could remember of the harp were small Marie-Antoinette-like instruments, and while it is true that the numerous little pieces written from Beethoven come out very nicely on those ancient instruments, one can easily imagine that he considered them as second-class instruments. As is the case with Haydn, Schubert, Brahms or Schoenberg, it is regrettable that no harpist of that time managed to convince Beethoven to write a masterpiece specifically for the harp!

How did you consider the transcription process?
One cannot really speak of transcription per se as I haven’t had to re-write anything. I’ve limited myself to simply adapting some parts of the score that are impossible to play on a harp such as very fast chromatic passages. With Beethoven as is the case with Bach, every note is completely essential and I’ve spent a lot of time going crazy trying to find ways to replace the few sections organically impossible to play with satisfactory alternatives. To sum up, I’ve avoided trying to adapt the scores to the harp and on the contrary, I’ve adapted my technique to Beethoven’s scores. The reasons are not only to be « loyal to the text », but actually because every note written by Beethoven is the best one!

It is difficult not to think of the reference to the Beethoven’s piano, how do you deal with it?
When I play pieces on the harp that were originally written for other instruments, I do not try to imitate the sound of the original instrument. On the contrary, I decide to accept completely the harp and to show its variety. Otherwise, I don’t see the interest of it. You would better off actually playing the piano, the clavichord or the lute, don’t you think? Besides, the same principle applies to the audience: people come to the concert to listen to Beethoven on the harp, and if they are looking to hear the piano, they should go hear a pianist - there are plenty of them out there!
Actually, I notice that this question is never asked about the modern piano, although from an acoustic point of view, today’s concert grand pianos are even more distant from an early 19th century Broadwood than any modern or historical harp.
In fact, to play on the harp pieces that were not intended for it does not disfigure them, any more than playing them on modern pianos. It doesn’t change their faces, we just get to see them in a different light with another profile. Either way, the piece itself stays the same. 

You are one of the biggest supporters of historical harps and you actually have an impressive collection of them. Why wouldn’t you prefer to play Beethoven exclusively on period instruments?
The matter of the choice of the instrument is integral to the success of being able to play Beethoven on the harp. Much more than for other pieces, those scores require appropriate instruments, in order for Beethoven not to sound ridiculous on the harp. I really love to play Beethoven’s music on 1820-1830 English harps, such as Erat, Erard or Egan, even if they lack a few strings in the lower register that modern harps do have. I have to say that it has nothing to do with historical « authenticity ». Rather, their clearness and brightness simply corresponds to what I want to hear. In a small room, it is true that playing Beethoven’s music on a historical harp makes complete sense. But for bigger halls, and with such large programs, it is more comfortable to be able to trust a reliable and solid instrument that behaves like a friend. In fact, of course I can play Beethoven on any harp, whether it is historical or modern, as long as I can spend enough time to adapt my touch and get the sound I really want to hear. 

A last word about Beethoven?
I will borrow an observation made by Nikolaus Harnoncourt about Beethoven’s ballet, the creatures Prometheus, precisely the only time Beethoven wrote for the harp.
After having build his two statues out of mud, Prometheus went to find the goddess Athena in order for her to breathe the breath of life, intelligence and the capacity to move, but afterwards, it is the Muses who sustained emotions with a kiss on the forehead. In other words, Beethoven reminds us that arts sustains not only love but overall, that life is incomplete without art and I think that itself is the essence of music and musicians.