In view of Mr Grew's last edit, let me clarify: Example 2 is the RH as heard in Example 1, while Example 3 is the RH as heard in Example 4. If the Member is able to hear a difference between Exs 2 and 3, it must logically follow that he must equally be able to hear the same difference between exs 1 and 4.

If he cannot, then I shall be very surprised indeed.

Baz

We thank the Member for the valuable pointer to the early editions of Chopin; but apart from that there is little we can add. Our Schirmer edition has one not quite so long sweeping phrase marked over the first three full bars - not four as in the Schlesinger edition - but after that our editor seems to have tired because there are no further phrase marks in the entire piece. The pedal indications are almost the same but again not quite.

Here is the "work" of an Austrian crackpot - rather foppish - who arranged some (specifically five) of Bach's fugues for string quartet. Had synthesizers existed in his day he would indubitably have used them instead. Actually we do not think he deserves much credit, because all he seems to have done is to copy the four voices, assigning one to each instrument of the quartet. A further and not inconsiderable element of crackpottery is contributed through the performance, which in this recording is about six times faster than the correct tempo for this fugue.

Since this piece is Alla breve, does the member feel that THIS is a better tempo, or should he prefer it to move even a little brisker?

Baz

..but we must remember that the lowest note on the viola is C, so the B would have been out of range. So why did he succumb to the then-current rave for string quartet as a medium for music not designed for the purpose? What a 'fop'!

Baz

Oh dear Mr Grew!  Too much 'electronic inputting of notes' perhaps? You really must, please, take a great work for what it is (rather than what you feel others 'think' it is). Even Tovey correctly describes this movement as "a Toccata and Double Fugue" (which, of course, it is). The problem is that unless it is actually played like one it does not sound like one. Vibrating guitars hardly bring out the best of this great work do they?

It will not have espcaped your attention (especially since you have here grappled with every single note in the piece) that (as Tovey advises) the work , like othes in the collection, introduces a second theme to work against the first; and that, furthermore, Bach here plays with inversion and also with invertible counterpoint at the 11th. This is, therefore, no mean feat of creativity and endurance is it? Let us forget Tovey's stab about seeing "whether the organ has good lungs" - there being no evidence I know of that associated such a remark with this piece (clearly, in my view, written expressly to evince the resonances and tuning of the harpsichord, not the organ!).

The best we should offer, I feel, is a real performance by an expert upon the correct instrument (tuned according to standards of the day in order to bring out the particular colours of the keys being used). I must therefore offer here such a performance for reconsideration of this absolutely superb and excitingly-constructed piece - highly unusual as it is in being a 'Toccata' masquerading under the umbrella term "Prelude". Only in this form of presentation can one really get a grasp of the expansiveness and depth of Bach's structural thinking:

CLICK

Wanda's performance is just too staid and eccentric for me to take it any more seriously than the electronic file you originally posted this morning. I cannot believe the reason why she plays it so intolerably slowly is because the notes are otherwise too difficult for her to play properly. So the actual reason must, therefore, be due to a complete misjudgment of the piece itself. If she had known (or understood) that the movement was actually a 'toccata' (embedding as toccatas did at this time a fugue) she might have thought of making it more exciting as a display piece.

With regard to the instrument: it sounds as dead as it ever should have done, being constructed (as they were in the 'Goble' days) of railway lines held together with sleepers. The soundboard is hardly permitted to vibrate at all (so great is the tension placed upon it).

With regard to tuning, I think we can assume confidently that it is exactly (with the aid of scientific instrumentation) adjusted to accord with exact 12-tone Equal Temperament.

As for Mr Berben - well, watch this space!

Baz

Well Mr Grew, I do not think that was so 'crackpot' after all. Given the nature of the 'default sounds' and 'timbres' that we have come now to expect as being 'normal', I have to say that the tempo was exactly correct for this piece. I might have preferred that telling rest in the subject to have been observed rather than completely ignored (it has an important musical function in providing articulation for the following upbeat, would you not agree?). But otherwise it seems to me a perfectly sound 'synthetic' (if not indeed 'anaesthetical') cobbling together of the raw materials embodied within the composer's thought processes.

NOW...what about Wanda?!

Baz