It reminded me of this amusing scene:

The Member or others may perhaps enjoy this site: http://www.gearchange.org/

Living in Germany has indeed caused us to be sloppy with our Bindestrichen - we admit that we had first typed gearchange, without either space or hyphen. As far as we know there was no such thing as a lorry in 1970s Melbourne. They were all trucks. Calling them lorries would have caused one to be looked at askance and that would not have done. As far as we know that situation still pertains in the parts of Australia where we have lived at least in the social circles in which we moved to the point that we doubt we have ever lived where lorry is the standard word for the thing.

We wonder if the Member in his turn has perhaps confused Kraftfahrzeug (motor vehicle) often abgekürzt to KFZ or Kfz with Lastkraftwagen (truck or lorry) often abgekürzt to LKW or Lkw. We do not know what a Kfw might be although there is certainly a KfW.

(We do rather like this phrase upon which we have just come: "Kraftfahrzeug (common German abbreviation for car)". If that is indeed the Abkürzung then the German word for car itself must indeed be an impressive thing.)

We are gratified that our little effort has pleased the Member! And we can certainly see from where he is coming although for us he was already much improved with the Third. If there is a trouble with the motive that supplies the substance for our own crackpot speculation it is surely that it is difficult to disassociate it from Schumann's Third Symphony from which Mahler may not unfairly be said to have appropriated it magnify it though he surely did.

Interesting - we should send them as an early example that Chopin study opus 10 number 2. And yes indeed, "Lkw" was what we should have written. Realising that we did not know the true meaning of the word "lorry" we looked it up in the Oxford English Dictionary only to find that its compilers did not know either, but wrote simply "of obscure etymology; cf. dial. lurry, to pull, drag." Chambers's Dictionary of 1901 says much the same: "a four-wheeled wagon without sides [perh. from prov. Eng. lurry, to pull]."

The member may not be aware that in the 1960's the streets of London were full of large motorized lorries with only three wheels - an extraordinary sight and tribute to the native originality of the English.

To-day's contribution to crackpottery (rapid-share / send-space) is a version of the F sharp minor Prelude from Book II of Bach's great collection "for the use and profit of the musical youth desirous of learning." This version moves along at a comfortable speed, not an Adagio as Tovey recommends, but more of an Andante. It takes two minutes and fifteen seconds. It is instructive though to compare Wanda's performance, at well over three minutes, because it too is full of interest and most pleasant to listen to.

Tovey described the Prelude as "a magnificent stream of lyric melody"; we agree, and that is probably what Wanda comes nearest to giving us. Riemann represented it as "an outpouring of the inmost soul, fresh with youth, overflowing with love, more, perhaps, than any in the first part of the work" [i.e. Book I]. "What freedom in the unfolding both of melody and rhythm!" he rightly exclaims. Debrois van Bruyck, on the other hand, said it was "herbe" (dry or dour) and spoke of "trockenes Formelwesen" (its dry formal character).

What is more extraordinary however is the time Wanda takes here over the Fugue. She is at her most utterly lugubrious, going on for just short of nine minutes, whereas our crackpot's performance (to be presented to-morrow) takes an unhurried four minutes and ten seconds.

Bach's table of ornaments is very well known and appears as...



...where every ornament begins on the main beat. Most experts realise, however, that these only represent a pattern, and that some flexibility and freedom in applying them is a matter of good taste. (Writing out the patterns could only have been done with notational exactitude, but - as also with the performance of normal written-out melodies - there is always the matter of interpretation and taste when applying them in particular contexts.)

It is the third ornament (trill with mordant) that is to be used in the F# Major subject (where, as often, Bach fully notates the final turn - following the dotted not - instead of using the ornamental stroke to indicate the turn as in his table).

As usual, dear of Gustav provides exactly what Bach should have expected, and does so in a performance that adopts a true, flowing Alla breve performed with great expression and intensity (befitting the chromaticism, and its harmonic affect, applied to the Countersubject).

CLICK

Baz

Mr Grew - of course Rosalyn is pitched a semitone higher - she is playing a piano pitched at A440, and not a harpsichord using kammerton pitched at A415. I don't think Gustav's tempo is much less than Rosalyn's (except at the very beginning, where Gustav takes time to let the tempo 'settle'). The main difference is in the regularity and articulation of rhythm: Rosalyn is metronomic, while Gustav is more given to rubato. This difference also affects the playing of the ornaments where Rosalyn is equally metronomic while Gustav is more 'rhapsodic'. But Gustav follows Bach's formulae more exactly! Nowhere (to my knowledge) does Bach ever indicate beginning an ornament upon the written pitch of the note, but always instead on the upper note. Gustav shows that beginning (as 'normal') upon the upper note in no way obscures the harmony, but merely decorates the melody.

The search for what you call the right way reminds me of your long-held notion that taste is somehow 'fixed', 'unchangeable', 'objective'. I have - as you know - disagreed with this over more than two years. I do not indeed believe that Bach himself would necessarily have played his own ornaments always in the same manner, or that repeated performances by him of the same pieces would always necessarily be at the same exact tempo. The best we can hope for is a) to determine the criteria through which 'good taste' can be achieved, and b) to apply them in the best way possible. I believe - whatever one may say of Gustav - that he always attempts to do just that.

Baz

I still don't like Glen's playing - this is too slow for this piece, and his tendency deliberately never to play two notes simultaneously (but instead to arpeggiate everything as though he was playing a harp) causes the performance to sound a) hesitant, and b) as though we are being lectured to upon some obscure point of stylistic importance that only remains as unclear at the end as it was at the beginning.

On the other hand, the crackpot version was, to me, much more pleasing! It proceeded at exactly the right tempo, and flowed nicely, giving a good sense of organic growth and development. The ornaments were, for me, a little metronomic (but this always happens with computer-generated realisations), and I cannot understand why the first RH note in bar 15 is a D# instead of a D-natural (perhaps there is somewhere an edition that prefers D# here that is unknown to me?).

I shall be away for a couple of days, so will have to catch up with this thread when I return.

Baz