Benjamin-Joseph STEENS

Born in Bonheiden (Belgium), Benjamin-Joseph Steens studied musicology at the Catholic University of Leuven and at the University of the Sorbonne Paris-IV, where he earned a Master’s degree in 1994. At the same time, the extensive musical formation that he underwent at the Lemmens Institute (Leuven) and at the Conservatory of Orleans led him to the Higher National Conservatory of Music and Dance of Paris, where his studies won him several first prizes and diplomas of higher formation in organ (under Michel Bouvard and Olivier Latry), harpsichord (under Pierre Hantai then Olivier Baumont) and basso continuo. In addition, while there he procured the “Certificat d’Aptitude” for Organ (department of pedagogy, 2004).

His attraction to antique keyboards was enriched by his contact with Jos van Immerseel, with whom he improved at the Conservatory of Antwerp. Since that time, he has played more and more clavichord, becoming one of the few contemporary keyboardists to play this instrument in recital and to use it in chamber music (notably with Jacques-Antoine Bresh, traverso).

His natural curiosity for all repertories leads him also to take an interest in the music of the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries and to collaborate with composers in preparing such creations as the Ricercar for organ, by Bert van Herck, at the Saint Remi Basilica of Rheims on June 11, 2006.

Titular of the Cattiaux great organ in the Saint Remi Basilica of Rheims of which he is also curator, responsible for the Bernard Aubertin organ in Vertus (The Marne), Benjamin-Joseph Steens appears regularly in Europe for recitals, chamber music concerts or orchestral productions. His performances are regularly recorded for radio or television. He teaches organ, harpsichord and continuous bass at the National Conservatory of Region of Music and Dance of Rheims and at the conservatory of Levallois (Parisienne region).

BACH AND SONS

It's good to observe that commercial risks can become unexpected bestsellers. In keeping with 18th century home entertainment preferences, we had asked keyboard virtuoso Benjamin-Joseph Steens to record Bach's Goldberg Variations on a clavichord instead of a harpsichord, and this recording became a hit (first on Youtube, then on compact disc). On his new album, Steens confronts the delicacy of his clavichord with the colourful intimacy of a traverso played by Jacques-Antoine Bresch, in an unprecedented exploration of keyboard and flute music by the Bach sons.

J.S.BACH. GOLDBERG VARIATIONS BWV 988

Although we have grown accustomed to the harpsichord as the Baroque keyboard instrument of choice, J. S. Bach preferred the smaller clavichord for home entertainment. Benjamin Steens challenges our listening habits by performing the mythical Goldberg Variations on the clavichord, and demonstrating that – despite its delicacy – the instrument does full justice to Bach’s intimacy and emotion, as well as to the dazzling architecture of the music.

This recording intends to compensate for the unfortunate paucity of clavichord versions of the Goldberg Variations, for the clavichord has expressive possibilities which are unique to the instrument. Due to the simplicity of its construction, there is almost direct contact between the player’s fingers and the strings, as a result of which its tones can be emitted with any conceivable dynamic shading, and modified throughout their duration (in order, for instance, to add vibrato).

Belgium-born Benjamin-Joseph Steens is a historical keyboard virtuoso who excels on the clavichord, the harpsichord, and on the organ. On account of the Bach-Buxtehude organ recital he previously released on the Evil Penguin, the authoritative Dutch music critic Aart Van der Wal called Steens “a formidable organ player (...), both from the point of view of technique and interpretation.”

Bach-Buxtehude

Lübeck, around 1700. The great Hanseatic city holds an eminent intellectual, economic and political position in this great cultural crossroads region represented by Hamburg. The city’s musical life is dominated by the most renowned composer of his time: Dietrich Buxtehude. Organiste and director of Marienkirche, the town’s principal church (whose members include the city council and wealthy merchant families), Buxtehude, already nearly 70 years old, is famous for his brilliant technique, his virtuosity and innovation at the pedal board, his dazzling improvisations and compositions that integrate the splendid “stylus phantasticus” that he commands like no other. Friend of the great organier Arp Schnitger, he is besides an expert in organ-building. Even more than that, this exceptional talent is also the composer and organizer of the highly reputed Abendmusiken, spiritual concerts in subscription that take place on feast days between the Feast of Saint Martin and Christmas. Revealing a highly concentrated musical practice, these performances bring together some forty musicians – the excellent municipal musicians of Lübeck among them – who distribute themselves on the six galleries of Marienkirche in order to execute the monumental oratorical works composed by the master of the place.
There is no doubt that Johann Sebastian Bach knew a part of the work of the great organist of Lübeck, no doubt that he longed to hear the Abendmusiken. After his solid classical formation at school in Lüneburg, raised on the style and aesthetics of the
German masters, after a few determinative encounters such as those with Georg Bohm and Jan Adam Reinken, after some trips to Hamburg as well, after many contacts with the music of the French composers besides, as a great virtuoso of the keyboard and the violin, he wished naturally to deepen his cultural and musical baggage by traveling to Lübeck. In August 1703, he landed his first organist position in Arnstadt, but his youthful verve and impetuous nature put him frequently in conflict with his superiors or with the students for which he is responsible. In 1705, he is 20 years old.

He requests and secures a leave of absence of four weeks in order to go to the shores of the Baltic Sea.
Lübeck, November 1705: Johann Sebastian Bach, after having made the 400km distance from Arnstadt to Lübeck on foot, reaches the Hanseatic town just in time to hear the first rehearsals of the Abendmusiken, and probably takes part in them. That year, the spiritual concerts also take a unique turn because two additional oratorios are given a running in December to celebrate the death of the emperor and the advent of his successor. Between the rehearsals and the church services, the young Bach soaks up the works of the master, which contain tradition and innovation, and copies his rich library. If archives do not let us know what happened exactly between Bach and Buxtehude nor the actual content of their exchange, they do consent, on the other hand, to allow us to glimpse the certainty that a change of style took place in the young Bach. In fact, upon his return to Arnstadt, he is lectured by his superiors, not only for the length of his absence, which largely surpasses the terms set before his departure, but also the disordered manner with which they say he handles church music. He is notably reproached for introducing astonishing variations into the choral accompaniment, of interrupting melodies with strange sounds, and of carrying out overly rapid modulations.

In 1705, Buxtehude is an experimental composer who carries the new school of keyboarding in North Germany to its height. This school constitutes the synthesis of two traditions. On one hand, that of the North German masters originated from the tradition of writing for keyboard developed by the students of Jan Pieterszoon Sweelinck. The latter, one century earlier, had already achieved the synthesis of the English, Dutch and Italian keyboard schools, creating an aesthetic in which the style of the rigorous counterpoint rubs elbows with the free forms and the virtuosity of manual keyboards. On the other hand, the tradition that assimilates the Italian style

brought back to the Baltic Sea surroundings by German musicians having studied in Italy, notably Heinrich Schütz. Buxtehude’s predecessor at Marienkirche, Franz Tunder, imported the Italian style through his large knowledge of the works of Girolamo Frescobaldi. This assimilation of the Italian style in the music of North Germany, transported likewise by Weckmann who was a great friend of Froberger, himself a disciple of Frescobaldi, is manifested in the emergence of the “stylus phantasticus”. This declamatory art, this dramatic emphasis in direct rapport with theatrical style, matches high volumes with winged recitative passages. This new style, which integrates the demonstrative side of Italian music into the traditionally structured and rhetorical German discourse, is developed by North German composers since the second half of the 17th century but Buxtehude extends its influence to the maximum, moreover by utilizing the pedal board as a full-fledged keyboard and devoting virtuoso passages to it.

There is no document that permits us to judge the stylistic evolution of the musician, but it is possible to sketch an outline of its journey, from the works of youth little marked by his personality to those that synthesize the diverse elements of the language, via the development of the “stylus phantasticus” that is characterized by more compositions and by more hardy harmonic realizations with which he made his reputation in Lübeck. The brilliant passage of Passacaille in D minor expected to be one of his last works.

According to the tradition and usage of the North Germany school the majority of the preludes of Buxtehude, indifferently entitled “praeludium”, “preambulum” or “toccata”, take the form of polyptychs. However, if they resemble those of Scheidemann or Praetorius in form, they differ by the virtuoso writing for the keyboard, influenced by the Italian style. The very essence of Buxtehude’s preludes resides in the juxtaposition of sections written in a language that lends itself to improvisation (stylus phantasticus) and strictly structured runaway parts, all respecting a rigorous rhetoric, the fugues in the preludes having more or less the same function as do arias in oratorios or operas. However, in Buxtehude’s work, there are also rare examples (Toccata in F BuxWV 157) of construction in two parts, kind of a “toccata and fugue” diptych, which will be the form most cultivated by Johann Sebastian Bach.

And as we distinguish an evolution in the style of the prelude, in Buxtehude himself then in Johann Sebastian Bach, some changes are tangible in the chaconne form, which becomes likewise the object of an evolution of scope for Buxtehude and then for Bach. In fact, Buxtehude carries to its paroxysm the art of “deriving the multiple from the unique” concerning the small variations in chaconnes. It is thus that with the common little chaconne – a form born in southern Europe – squeezed between two movements free of preludes, he makes a full-fledged movement, introducing likewise the utilization of the pedal board. He is one of the only composers of his generation to develop this form in as accomplished a manner as in his two chaconnes and his Passacaille in D minor. The form itself remains quite rare in North Germany after Buxtehude, but Bach brings it to his with two great examples that figure among the greatest monuments of his work: the Chaconne for solo violin and the Passacaille and Fugue in C minor for organ, the latter making reference to the obvious mode in the Passacaille in D minor de Buxtehude.

The evolution of the form itself is less palpable for the choral than for the prelude or the chaconne. The musical language evolves however, always with the importation of the “stylus phantasticus”, and notably the practice of the lessening of the higher voice, coming from the madrigal then from the motet, is applied to the chorals. The ornate choral thus seems like the accomplishment of the motet by which the musician diminishes the higher part in favor of prosody and personal virtuosity. The evolution of the temperament of the instruments equally permits some new harmonic achievements, and it is particularly in this sense that the evolution of the chorale takes place after the disappearance of Buxtehude.
What Johann Sebastian Bach takes away from Lübeck is none other than a brilliant summary of German music: the rich and rigorous writing tradition for keyboard augmented by the remarkable petulance of Italian music, guided by one of the greatest organ virtuosos of his time. But that is not all: he takes with him a condensation of European culture and the idea of a sure, exceptional music practice, that will not miss in inspiring his Oratorios for Christmas.

The encounter with Buxtehude, alchemist of rigor and freedom, in the at least favorable context of a rich city of the Hanse, helps him to become himself: a musician entirely permeated with the quintessence of the musical practice of North Germany but who, freeing himself from the constraints imposed by tradition, carries the customary forms to their paroxysm all the while creating his own musical language.

Cattiaux-organ of the Saint Remi Basilica of Rheims

For his musical choice, Bertrand Cattiaux draws inspiration from two instruments restored by his workshops: the Etampes organ (dating in part from the 16th century), and that of Bolbec (constructed in 1630). Even if their style is different, these two French instruments were built under the influence of Flemish organ workmanship like the majority of Parisian organs of the 17th century.
The organ of Saint Remi, a French polyphonic instrument inaugurated in the year 2000, is a means of addressing the European music of the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, as well as a large part of that of the 20th century, without forgetting the contemporary repertoire, to which it is particularly adapted.

The organ of Saint Martin church of Vertus

Bernard Aubertin, maker of “organic” organs through the use of traditional materials, the choice of proportions, governing the visual aspect, claims to be in intimate rapport with the resonance of the instrument. Aubertin organs, very marked by the personality of their maker, in addition refuse the compromise of the “play-it-all” organ.
The instrument in Vertus, built in 1996, is an organ considered principally for German baroque music, allowing for a wide opening toward classical and pre-romantic German repertory, as well as toward the aesthetic of the polyphonic baroque music of the Netherlands.