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William Hoffman wrote (March 15, 2019):
Ton Koopman has accomplished various milestones in his musical career as a keyboard performer, conductor of his own orchestra and choir, teacher, arranger, and scholar. He is best known for his complete edition of the Bach Cantatas completed in 2005 (Amazon.com) with his own Amsterdam Baroque Orchestra and Choir, founded in 1979 and 1992, respectively. Previously, he had recorded all of Bach's organ music completed in 1999 (Amazon.com). Subsequently, he recorded all of Buxtehude's music completed in 2014 (ArkivMAusic). He has built an extensive discography of the works of Bach and other composers (https://www.tonkoopman.nl/discography), specializing in early music.
Koopman also is active as a guest conductor with many modern orchestras (like the National Symphony Orchestra in March 2019), and he gives many organ concerts and harpsichord recitals (https://www.tonkoopman.nl/agenda). He also publishes and teaches regularly on Performance Practice matters. In September 2018, the Royal Conservatoire in The Hague (NL), where Koopman has been professor of harpsichord for many years, launched a new Honors' Master of Music programme in the field of early music: the Ton Koopman Academy (https://www.koncon.nl/en/programmes/master/early-music/the-ton-koopman-academy).
After a classical education, Koopman (b.1944), studied organ, harpsichord and musicology in Amsterdam, being awarded the Prix d'Excellence for both organ and harpsichord. Even before completing his studies he laid the foundations for a career as a conductor of 17th- and 18th-century music. Koopman's choice to use authentic instruments combined with a performing style based on sound scholarship, was a central theme from the start, though the quality of the performance was always paramount. His extensive activities as a soloist and conductor have been recorded on a large number of LP's and CD's for labels including Erato, Teldec, Philips and DGG.
Koopman was one of the chief conductors or the Netherlands Radio Chamber Orchestra, from 1994 to 2001. He also appears as guest conductor with many symphony orchestras. Koopman publishes regularly, is professor of harpsichord at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague and is Honorary Member of the Royal Academy of Music in London. In April 2003 he was knighted in the Netherlands, receiving the Order of the Netherlands Lion. He is President of the International Dietrich Buxtehude Society. Koopman was awarded the Bach Medal of the city of Leipzig in 2006, and the Buxtehude Prize of the city of Lübeck in 2012.
Given the current economics of the recording industry, Koopman has no major recording projects planned, content to conduct, teach, and continue to be a life-long student of Bach, he said in an interview before his National Symphony appearance. Among his recordings, Koopman has a special affinity for his partnership with renowned cellist Yo-Yo Ma, doing Bach transcriptions as well as concertos of Boccherini, "Simply BaroqueI and II" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nnpoN34H0mU, https://video.search.yahoo.com/yhs/search?fr=yhs-GenieoYaho-INTtraffic&hsimp=yhs-INTtraffic&hspart=GenieoYaho&p=Koopman+Simply+Baroque+YouTube#id=1&vid=00733e374b339516cfbf844917019ab9&action=view) and a Vivaldi album (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMgDMexi7fs).
Two other Bach complete recorded editions are underway: Koopman's colleague Jos van Veldhoven and the Netherlands Bach Society, "All of Bach," (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Performers/Veldhoven-Rec2.htm), who has retired, and the Bach Stiftung in Switzerland (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/Festival/Festival-St-Gallen-Bach-Stiftung.htm), with whom Koopman remains in touch. Meanwhile, he guest conducts symphony orchestras doing a mix of baroque and classical works as well as choral music, such a Mozart's Mass in C Minor in Rome in April, and in the summer with his Amsterdam orchestra and choir touring Germany and Spain, presenting Bach Cantatas 110, 127 and 201. Another group of works that he cherishes are the Mozart symphonies. He also did realizations of Bach's St. Mark Passion (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kp5Toc7Arfk) and the Buxtehude Das Jüngste Gericht (https://www.allmusic.com/album/buxtehude-wacht%21-euch-zum-streit-gefasset-macht-das-jüngste-gericht-mw0001400432), and hopes to reprise the Bach Passion in performance. His version borrows music from Bach's cantatas, combined with recitatives he composed himself. He decided to "simply start from scratch." He is content not to do further adaptations such as orchestrations of Bach's Organ Trio Sonatas, Goldberg Variations, or Art of Fugue, although he likes colleague conductor Jordi Savall's version of the latter (http://www.jsbach.org/savallartoffugue.html).
Turning to the concept of the Early Music authentic performance movement, Koopman, who fills the middle ground between larger ensembles and the austerity of OVPP (one voice per part), is content to study and teach. The Ton Koopman Academy aims to develop the artistic skills and scientific knowledge of researcher-performer musicians to a high international level. Annually he assembles a group of baroque instrumentalist for afternoon playing sessions after studying works in the morning. He likes to introduce unfamiliar pieces and work with students to consider approaches as well as varying fundamentals of playing techniques, continually asking a rhetorical "why?" Koopman continues to teach keyboard, his first love as a musician, and sometimes will do informal workshops while on tour. This June at the Bach Leipzig Festival, he will do an organ recital in honor of Bach's 1717 aborted contest with famous French organist Louis Marchand (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Marchand), playing his music. He also will do a recital of Bach house-music with bass Klaus Mertens (https://www.bachfestleipzig.de/en/bach-festival/no-13-festive-concert).
Considering Bach's organ works, Koopman emphasizes that there is no authentic interpretation of Bach's organ works, that Bach evolved with his music which was not composed for particular instruments. His perspective on the "Bach Organ Sound" is that it is full, with daring register combinations, incredible toe pedaling (Koopman's technique), and various embellishments. In his interpretations, he looks for the stylus phantasticus fantasia freedom elements, variation of registration and tempo, as well as Bach's cantabile way of playing, although he occasionally likes to speed up the tempo, as Bach did. Before every recital, he listens to the instrument to bring out its speciaqualities. Koopman has included questionable Bach chorale-based works in his recordings and continues to assess them. He was the first organist to record vocal chorales with his choir interspersed with the Schübler and "Great 18" (https://www.allmusic.com/album/bach-organ-works-vol-2-mw0001805220): Track listing). He planned to do the same with the Clavier-Übung III Mass and Catechism chorales but the economics of the recording project prevented it, while his colleague Masaaki Suzuki later recorded them (http://www.bach-cantatas.com/NonVocal/Klavier-KlavierUbungIII-Suzuki.htm).
Koopman likes Suzuki's version of the Mozart Requiem (http://www.classical-music.com/mozart-choral-review-feb15) as well as Robert Levin's more complete edition (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sGg2AwyNZA4).
Koopman concluded with some special, personal insights into Bach. He thinks that Bach's extended, four-month visit in northern Germany in 1705-06 was not just to visit the organist Dietrich Buxtehude in Lübeck and perform in the Abendmusiken but to learn the region's music, including meeting Handel at the Hamburg Opera. As to the issue of a Bach fifth Passion, Koopman simply points out the different versions of the St. John Passion and thinks that Bach may have presented Passions of his colleague Telemann. As to the issue of five Bach church cantata cycles, Koopman respectfully disagrees with his friend, noted Bach scholar Christoph Wolff, that there are two missing cycles. He thinks that the evidence shows only three cycles with a few additional pieces. |
