After that truly erudite contribution from Mr. Baziron it may be of interest to Members to read this extract of Riemann:


What interests us is that he seems to be saying that Bach originally wrote his B sharps as a C, and his E sharps as an F! If a Member has access to a reproduction of one of Bach's manuscripts of this B minor Fugue may we ask him whether it might be convenient to post here the first page thereof so that the Group may see for themselves this frankly unexpected notation?

If in Bach's mind B sharp did not exist that would be more than a matter of notation merely would not it; it would throw new light upon the nature and history of tonality.

We thank the Member for so acutely pointing out at least one more wrong note - there are we hope still fewer than in Leon's version. We would like to correct it, but the Japanese sequencer contraption was long ago sent to the tip, and its MIDI data are saved on cassette tapes, indecypherable by any known computer programme. The shrieks and whistles resemble the sound of an old-fashioned modem, but it would take at least a week to write our own decoder, and to tell the truth it would be more amusing to key the information in again, using modern software such as Finale. There is a faint possibility though that if we ask on the computer thread some one may know of a cassette decyphering programme.

We pass now on to Book II and the Prelude in B major (rapid-share / send-space). The tempo is pleasant enough where the semi-quavers are concerned, but regrettably rather too fast for the lyrical right-hand quaver passages.

We see here in Mr Grew's quotation (from Riemann) yet another true example of MISLING. Indeed it is one of such gravity that it becomes barely intelligible, so antiquated is its methodology, technology and numeric terms of reference. Yet it seems (on the face of things) to be offered in such a quasi-sophisticated manner that we humble readers feel naturally inadequately endowed with the intelligence and learning required to understand it! Indeed, even a student and polemicist as skilled as Mr Grew is here debased (through no fault of his, but purely on account of the trickery of Riemann) into thinking that the writer is informing him that Bach here wrote the notes F and C because he did not conceptualise the existence of E# and B#! (We can only wonder how he managed to compose movements in C# Major and Minor, and also in F# Major and Minor since these are their actual leading notes!)

In reality, of course, Riemann has misled Mr Grew even into believing that Bach originally DID use C for B# and F for E# (neither of which he did of course). This is because Riemann has decided (on the basis of his own absurd harmonic analysis) to re-notate the C as a B#, and consequently - through his own theoretical logic - to plead for a renotation of the E# as an F.

But then Riemann's notion of the harmonic structure is flawed because in having chosen to turn a blind eye to Bach's Largo marking (even though it appears in his written example!) he inadvertently imposes a harmonic rhythm at the level of the crotchet rather than the quaver!

It is a pity that he did not bother more closely to study the harmonies of bars 9-12, for had he done so he should have seen that a harmonic pulse in quavers (indeed slow quavers) is mandatory. That way he should also have understood that Bach's notation of the Subject is entirely diatonic, and such an understanding would undoubtedly have caused him to think twice about applying enharmonic changes to the notation, and implying (thereby) a type of assumed chromaticism that is completely out of place in this style.

Huh!

Baz

I have already rehearsed my affectionate feelings for Wanda (whom I should have loved to meet), and my despair at the sound of her Pleyel harpsichord (if only they had stuck with pianos!). Her playing of  the B Major fugue (thanks to Mr Grew's kindness) I had not heard before, but it remains firmly within my perception of Wanda's 'recension'. It is slightly aggressive (in a gentle sort of way), and shows at certain points a kind of whimsicality (or even - dare we say - possibly the musical equivalent of PMT?).

I wonder, for example, quite what particular emotion she was experiencing at bar 82 (and indeed why!) that caused her suddenly to put her foot down sharply upon the brake, and make the passage from there until bar 86 stutter (almost as if she was approaching a set of traffic lights, and was unsure whether or not they were about to change to red and had decided that at all costs she was not intending to suffer an endorsement upon her licence). Funnily, a similar thing happens also at bar 96, and from there the pace never recovers from her seemingly rhetorical insistence that we need to be informed at least 9 bars before the end that we are - indeed - approaching THE END. (Some of us have felt this for many years, but have chosen not to advertise the fact so openly!)

In contrast, Mr Grew provides us with quite another (and let us not be ashamed to admit it!) elevating vision of this movement. It flows at exactly the right pace, and has something that Wanda's lacks: an ever-present (and I believe crucial) sense of melody. Indeed, all the melodies are paced and delivered as melodies! We must not merely thank the computer for having acted as a filter between Bach's notes and what might otherwise have been 'human tinkering' with them (which we note relentlessly in the performances of Wanda, Rosalyn, Leon, and - even on occasions - Gustav) because this would undermine the time and energy Mr Grew himself originally put into creating so diligently the data from which these performances still come alive.

If I had to choose between Wanda and Sydney, the latter would win hands down every time!

Baz

HERE and links too to other S. L. Weiss performances.

By Golly! you are right Mr. Fragment - there are double flats all over the place. We have of late been waffling excessively.

Let us listen to-day to an insane version of Bach's Prelude in B minor from Book II, here (rapid-share / send-space) picked out with two fingers on the keyboard of a metallophone. Tovey tells us à propos of this piece that "Bach is never perky." He uses this adjective in contrast we think to "graceful" or "serious-minded" rather than to "reticent" or "aloof." And it cannot with equal justification be said can it that "Bach is never quirky," especially in his duetto mode as is the case here?

Once again we would encourage all Members to contribute crackpot interpretations they know to this thread - it is not intended to be for Bach alone!

Indeed we have recently come into possession of a ludicrous concoction entitled "Twenty-Four Preludes and Fugues" written for pianoforte by a crackpot seventh-rate Russian whose name is to-day seldom breathed in cultivated circles; perhaps we should go through those one by one pointing out exactly how and where he thwarts our legitimate expectations and could have done better.

It is just a two-part Invention - nothing more, nothing less. Whether or not it comes across as perky, graceful, serious-minded, reticent or aloof depends entirely upon the way a performer chooses to play it. I expect Glenn (whose performance I have not yet heard) makes it sound like an early prototype of Chopin's so-called 'Revolutionary Study'. Equally I should imagine Leon (whose performance I shall listen to a little later today) will be constrained to make it sound like a Grade 8 sight-reading exercise (probably composed anonymously by one Professor Bumblebee of the Royal Academy of Music Technicians).

Certainly Angela HERE gives a fairly staid and 'serious' account of the work, while still making it sound like a simple 2-part Invention. And unlike some of her other renditions, she does not sulk at the end into a romanticised pianissimo, but maintains the concentration as the end leads to what turns out (in her performance) to be a very joyful and playful fugue.

Interestingly, Mr Grew's own rendition seems the one most like Leonhardt's that I have heard (well done Mr Grew!). It is gentle and lyrical, and uses a more or less identical tempo.

Baz

Let us gather together to-day to listen to Bach's B minor Fugue from the Second Book. This excessively eccentric rendition is both too fast and too legato (rapid-share / send-space), so we would advise members to turn instead to Wanda's, Angela's, or even Glenn's (both of the last two of whom we had yesterday). Wanda is rather good in this Fugue, and she plays it in the most staccato way of all. Tovey says that this is the "most sonorous three-part piece ever written for anything other than an organ," and talks even of an "urgent rising sequence" therein. He has a go too at our anonymously legato crackpot who he deduces "would consider the Elgin Marbles either pretty or quaint." Nevertheless it is not in the same class as the B minor Fugue in Book I.

To-morrow another Chopin interlude; then onwards to Bach in E!

To-day we come to Bach in E, and in particular the Prelude in E major from his first book (rapid-share or send-space); it is Bach in pastoral mood, here arranged by a crackpot for an oboe over a drone, with an unspeakable harpy thing playing suspensions in the middle. But we must admit must not we that that particular suspension in bar nineteen is very beautiful!

Here as comparison is the performance of a newcomer to this thread, Edwin by name, and he is really rather good! (Except of course that he cannot on his instrument properly render all those long-held notes.) Nevertheless Edwin rightly considered that "one of the greatest secrets of interpretation lies in understanding a composition's harmonic progressions."

According to Grove at least, his is the "first complete recording of the Wohltemperirte Clavier."