Book Review: The Well-Tempered Accompanist by Coenraad Bos

Coenraad Bos

    Coenraad Bos (1875-1955) was a Dutch pianist and vocal accompanist. In his book The Well-Tempered Accompanist, he recounts his experiences throughout his long career in music, and offers advice to aspiring accompanists.

Here is the Wikipedia biography of him, and here is a link to the book on Archive.org.

The Practical and the Impractical

    Overall, the practical advice on accompanying is rarely specific. Rather, Bos's emphasis is on presenting the general principles and requisite skills of accompanying. Because of this, accompanists looking for detailed and exhaustive lists of advice will be disappointed. His emphasis on the cultural background that a complete accompanist should have is perhaps what is most striking about this book. A familiarity with languages, knowledge of poetry and how to interpret it, and a basic knowledge of singing are all skills that a good accompanist must possess in addition to (not instead of) a firm technical foundation and a fluent sightreading ability. These principles and skills Bos does a good job of presenting.

    There are a few instances of helpful advice that is more specific in nature. For example, Bos says that arpeggiated chords should be rolled so that the last (top) note falls on the beat, or on the singer's melody line. At times Bos's specificity was rather confusing to me (it is quite difficult to describe the finer aspects of music performance on paper). In Chapter VII, which deals with vocal coaching, Bos's examples of proper and improper musical slurring had me lost. I'm sure I would understand if I could hear the differences presented aurally, but on paper I have nothing to go off of.

    At other times, however, Bos provides specific information on the interpretation of German lieder which is of great value to singers and accompanists alike. Being a young pianist just starting his career near the end of the 19th century, Bos came to personally know two towering figures of German Romanticism - Clara Schumann and Johannes Brahms. In the book, he shares his experiences with these musicians and what he learned from them when it comes to German lieder. I found Bos's recounting of his premier of Brahms' Vier ernste Gesänge, Op. 121 to be quite interesting, especially since I will be accompanying a singer for the final song in that set ("Wenn ich mit Menschen") this Spring.

Storytelling

    Besides being a renowned accompanist, Bos was also a wonderful storyteller. The style of writing is quite attractive, and Bos draws examples from his vast experience practicing and performing with singers to make his points (and sometimes with no apparent point to make, but simply for the sake of the story). To give a rather humorous example, on pages 76-77 he recounts his experience accompanying the operatic tenor Ernest van Dyck. In one performance together, Van Dyck (being completely inconsiderate of his accompanist) bowed immediately upon the end of his last phrase and went off stage, ignoring the piano postlude. The audience clapped, but Bos continued to play until the end of his postlude, unperturbed, and the audience (realizing the injustice done to Bos) responded with grateful enthusiasm. Bos writes, "[T]he scene which ensued back stage, where the enraged van Dyck expressed all of his fury, is best left undescribed" (p. 77). There are many more stories, both interesting and illustrative of his points, that Bos makes throughout the book. I also found his experiences with cellists David Popper and Pablo Casals to be very interesting.

Conclusion

    I highly recommend this book to accompanists, singers, and even just those who are interested in classical music more broadly. I look forward to reading and reviewing at least two more books on accompanying: The Art of Accompanying  and Coaching by Kurt Adler and The Complete Collaborator by Martin Katz. Sometime this year, I also hope to read and review a book by Ashley Pettis (to whom Bos apparently dictated his book) called Music Now and Then, which I have heard gives an interesting perspective on modern music in the light of its ancient counterparts.