At a lower pitch, yes. We find as a general rule that suspensions sound better the lower they are - something to do with the beat frequencies probably.

The three-part Fugue in E major from Book I of Bach's collection for young musical persons is to-day's crackpot presentation (rapid-share / send-space). It is a rendition doomed from the start, in that its first note is insufficiently detached; nevertheless it contains a few seldom-before-heard effects of held notes, for example in bars 13 to 16 and again in bars 22 to 25. The jolly bouncing bass line in bars 26 and 27 is according to Tovey one of Bach's many happy afterthoughts or tinkerings. It was not his wont to let a work go, and the correctness of his truly creative method is borne out by the fact that these amendments of his are always improvements.

Tovey refers to the work as a Fughetta, and points out in its regard that "nothing could be worse than pedantry"!

Let us for comparison's sake hear here what Daniel makes of it. It is true that the first note is properly detached, but that is probably as much as can be said in his favour. Our impression is of a kind of blur or fog really. In particular the bouncing bass line at the end is quite lost; so we think he would be well advised to stick to his conducting. By to-morrow we hope to have on hand another new harpsichordist - Helmut by name. These works have certainly been attempted by many people, both crackpots and the steadier sort!

Mr. Iron's ear for wrong notes never ceases to astonish us! Two points arise from his latest remarks.


The bitonal A sharp in bar 18 is indeed an obvious error; the edition used was Harold Brooke's and there are no A sharps  there! But the curious thing is that our other edition, Tovey's, the one our anonymous crackpot definitely did not use, prints an A sharp in a funny sort of way (Ex. 2):


Tovey should have picked it up should not he? But the edition was actually put out by the "Associated Board of the Royal Schools of Music" in 1983 so it is probably they who are to blame.


The bass in the second half of bar twenty-four seems to be a variant reading. Brooke has A E F sharp C sharp, whereas Tovey (see illustration above) has A G sharp F sharp E. He mentions in passing the Brooke reading (or we should say the reading of whomever Brooke got it from) only to say that it is "not well vouched for." So it looks as though Daniel the Argentinian was following Tovey which we suppose is after all not too imprudent a course to take is it.

Imagine yourself for a moment an innocent child again taking his first tottering steps in music and look  v e r y  c a r e f u l l y  at the key signature of the bass staff in the first piano line. You then see in fact no fewer than nine A sharps along the line there do not you? We wonder whether the "Associated Board" did it as a trick?

We wonder whether that misprint is in all Tovey editions - has the Member got a Tovey?

This morning's lunatic preparation (rapid-share or send-space) is Bach's E minor Prelude from Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier. The quaver chords - their precise length is important - are very pleasant indeed; they remind us of another Bach work but we cannot remember which one. In Bach's first version they were all he had on top and the long lyrical twiddles were added only at a later date when after having thought a bit more about the piece he came back to it.

But the second part of the Prelude - marked Presto! and another addition - is except for the final bar somewhat otiose can it not be denied? (And thus it stands in contradiction to something we said only yesterday.)

I feel that Bach here originally intended a movement similar to the D Major Prelude (Book 1), but this time with the running semiquavers in the LH, and regular chords on the main beats in the RH. But I expect he soon decided that (unlike the D Major) a florid bass line did not present sufficient melodic interest, and therefore reworked it. By making the RH now a melodic line, this meant slowing down the whole pace (as Tovey states), and placing new ornamentations and figurations into the RH.

But he then probably felt that it all began to sound like some kind of 'grand opening' section to something else, and so decided to allow a feeling of climax and development by then adding the second section ('Presto') into which the first section was to flow seamlessly. It is, as Mr Grew suggests, not easy to pace this join effectively (though the 'Presto' does not have to sound 'otiose').

I think that GUSTAV gives an effective performance in which the opening section flows along with slight emphasis upon the main harmonies, and wherein the 'Presto' section simply comes into being with a feeling of the 'rhapsodic', and even the 'psychedelic'. He manages (I feel) to make the second half sound like a development of the first half (which is what it really is).

Baz

I just listened again to Gustav. Although I don't mind the speedy nature of the ornaments in section 1, I can understand why some might feel that they are a little too hasty. But I cannot yet hear anything wrong with the final bar - it seems to me to be exactly in time, given that he applies a very slight rit as he moves into beat two.

It might be worthwhile looking at the third section (i.e. the section in C minor) of the Pastorale in F (BWV 590) perhaps.

Karl Richter plays the whole piece here, and the third section/movt happens about 4' 40" into the recording.

Baz