I would say that despite tempo issues (rubato theme, accelerations in the episodes) this is the most convincing of the Berbens I have heard here so far; he does make a case for that tempo as an alternative to the more pensive readings that I'm familiar with.

Where were the wrong notes? I don't think I heard one. 

Oh, thank you very much for that pleasant comment. They escaped a rather casual listening on my part.

Thank you for sharing that... when I taught that fugue two months ago in my counterpoint class, people were quite tickled by the alto entry in inversion, midway through, even though they didn't see/hear it until it was pointed out to them. Marvelous harmonic imagination, that old Sebastian!

I don't suggest that Berben's tempo is to be recommended to the exclusion of slower tempi, merely that he made for me an interesting case for tripping along with some alacrity -- provided the fingers hold up. Your tempo seems a good compromise.

What sort of instrument do you have there, Baz, and how is it tuned, if I may ask? That is some kind of non-equal temperament is it not?

We find this F sharp minor fugue quite fascinating for a number of reasons. The first is the great range of speed between the different executants. Here (rapidshare or sendspace) is "number two crackpot" who takes 3 minutes 38 seconds but nevertheless manages to convey a sense of more urgency than any of the others!

Here and much less urgent is Angela on the piano - she takes 3 minutes 10 seconds.

But here in the most striking and satisfying performance of all is Wanda, who really taking her time about it goes on for 4 minutes 23 seconds - which is less than half the speed of Mr. Berben is not it.

We believe that executants should take at least three minutes over this fine work, if only so as to permit all Bach's verticalities - which change with every successive quaver - to sound properly without a sense of immoderate haste.

The subject of this fugue while not particularly melodic has two noteworthy features. The first is harmonic, consisting of the major third (A sharp) and augmented fourth (B sharp) in the second bar. These startling deviations from the diatonic permit Bach to construct correspondingly startling harmonies at many points later in the work, beginning as early as bar 4 when they are taken up by the counter-subject. The second noteworthy feature is in bar three and is rhythmic; first we have the C sharp (on a strong beat), the B (on a weak beat), and the A (on a strong beat), immediately followed by the reversal of that, with the C sharp on a weak beat, the B this time on a strong beat, and the A on a weak beat. It is simple but it is the essence of music, and returns again and again in the course of this work!


Tovey rightly says that the "whole Fugue requires the finest cantabile legato in every detail of its harmony and counterpoint." But he also says that "the figure of the counter-subject is obviously to be slurred in pairs of quavers." Well! That is not obvious to us at all!!

Here as contrast are a few bars from Fugue 21 of Book II, in B flat major.


We see in the bass the same rising motif but without the chromatics, and we see in the treble exactly the same falling motif from the counter-subject of the other. We wonder which fugue was written - or rather finished - first!

Some interesting performances there Mr Grew - thank you. As I'm sure you would have suspected, I much prefer Angela's approach, if only because her overall timing is almost exactly the same as mine. If the piece goes more quickly it loses its affect. And if it goes more slowly (as in Wanda's performance) it never manages to possess one at all!

I do not, I must admit, like Wanda's performance at all: it lacks any sense of gentle rhythmic flow, and places too much emphasis upon needless trickery (to the detriment of the music's structure and style). I suspect her approach rides upon the back of a generation of piano-playing Bachists, and that when confronted with a plucked instrument with no easy dynamic variation such needs to be constantly 'manufactured'. Hence the first bass entry is played as a 'solo' with a 16' pitched manual. At another point in the piece, the upper voice carrying the Subject is similarly played 'solo' using an 8' + a 4' sound. None of this should be necessary if played in any way stylistically - the instrument itself can sing the melodies perfectly naturally - but not at the truly funerial pace delivered by this performance.

Angela is (to me) the most musical of the three - and funnily enough I don't in the slightest way feel that her piano-orientated approach at all injures the music. Even though this style of playing brings with it so much 'foreign baggage' (in particular an over-emphasis upon shaded dynamics, and a tendency to play the Subject always at a different dynamic level from the surrounding voices - but worst of all the irrepressible and clichéd use of overlong and overdone ritardandi) it does nonetheless stand up as a genuinely musical performance.

I don't feel your crackpot version warrants any serious comment at all (and I am sure you would not have invited any on its behalf) other than to congratulate it upon its total ignorance of everything about this music other than the correct default note pitches (which at least places it in a hugely superior category than that of the flying Dutchman).

Baz

It is difficult to regard this as a performance, let alone a 'crackpot' one. After all the computer that produced it was responding exactly in the way that it was instructed.

For a truly CRACKPOT performance of this piece, I should refer you back to my earlier message #37, where our Dutchman is not playing according to what he has been instructed, but according exactly to HIS OWN brief. The result - in my opinion - pales into insignificance when compared with the obedient logic of the computer!

http://r3ok.myforum365.com/index.php?topic=2878.msg108047#msg108047

Baz

P.S. Unfortunately the file seems to have been deleted by Sendspace, and I shall not be uploading it again.

Thank you Mr Grew - what memories it rekindles too! I wonder how Angela plays it (no doubt very musically and sensitively)?

Baz