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"great" Prelude & Fugue In B Minor - Jsb


Malcolm Kemp

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This was one of the first "big" organ works of Bach that I learned over 40 years ago. I have played it many times at recitals and after services and, as one might expect, my way of playing it has changed over the years although not, perhaps, as much as one might have expected or as much as my interpretation of some other Bach works has changed.

 

This morning my breakfast and Suduko solving were rudely upset by Radio 3 playing a performance of this work by Ton Koopman. I have to admit that I don't hold Koopman up as being one of the great interpreters of JSB organ music but his performance of the B minor disturbed me greatly. I haven't had time yet to analyse precisely what I didn't like about it apart from it sounding disjointed, shapeless and lacking any sense of flow.

 

However, it did remind me of a talk I heard recently by Gordon Stewart when he mentioned, among many other fascinating things, JSB's key associations. He claimed that B minor was, for JSB a sad, melancholy key, giving "Erbame dich" from the Matthew Passion (that aria being IMHO the finest piece JSB ever wrote in any genre) as his prime example. He suggested - perhaps provocatively - that the P&F in B minor should be played quietly although I have never heard anyone do this. Where, I wondered at the time, does this leave the B minor Mass?

 

I have head Gordon Stewart talk about Bach before and on both occasions he has referred to the falling semitone as the "suspirans tristis" which is entirely logical and yet I've never come across it being so called anywhere else either in books or on-line. NEither Williams nor Wolfe refer to it in this way.

 

Any comments from our more erudite Board members, please?

 

Malcolm

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I’m glad someone has made this posting…

 

To-day I had a calm morning, getting ready for work while listening to Elgar’s Nimrod played on the Broadwood Square piano in the Cobbe collection. :) Having been to Hatchlands National Trust House last weekend, and purchased the CD.

 

Then I put the radio on and the announcer said something about “and to finish with some organ music, a Prelude and Fugue by Bach….”

 

A dreadful shock followed… I’m sorry to say that it sounded to me like a robot playing… and the dreadful screeching sound of the organ. I don’t know which one it was, as I couldn’t stand it and turned it off. I’m sure it was a famous organ, and Ton Koopman is so knowledgeable about early keyboard music…. But I have to say I went to work somewhat sad and upset… is this really the Bach sound and style? Why have I wasted such a long time trying to play the organ…..? :mellow:

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Guest Cynic
This was one of the first "big" organ works of Bach that I learned over 40 years ago. I have played it many times at recitals and after services and, as one might expect, my way of playing it has changed over the years although not, perhaps, as much as one might have expected or as much as my interpretation of some other Bach works has changed.

 

This morning my breakfast and Suduko solving were rudely upset by Radio 3 playing a performance of this work by Ton Koopman. I have to admit that I don't hold Koopman up as being one of the great interpreters of JSB organ music but his performance of the B minor disturbed me greatly. I haven't had time yet to analyse precisely what I didn't like about it apart from it sounding disjointed, shapeless and lacking any sense of flow.

 

However, it did remind me of a talk I heard recently by Gordon Stewart when he mentioned, among many other fascinating things, JSB's key associations. He claimed that B minor was, for JSB a sad, melancholy key, giving "Erbame dich" from the Matthew Passion (that aria being IMHO the finest piece JSB ever wrote in any genre) as his prime example. He suggested - perhaps provocatively - that the P&F in B minor should be played quietly although I have never heard anyone do this. Where, I wondered at the time, does this leave the B minor Mass?

 

I have head Gordon Stewart talk about Bach before and on both occasions he has referred to the falling semitone as the "suspirans tristis" which is entirely logical and yet I've never come across it being so called anywhere else either in books or on-line. NEither Williams nor Wolfe refer to it in this way.

 

Any comments from our more erudite Board members, please?

 

Malcolm

 

To answer various points:

I have not heard the Ton Koopman performance you refer to, however I can imagine how 'free' it might be. I'm sure his style is intended to bring out both the improvisatory possibilities that might well have come in a 'live' performance from Bach's time and the essential dance nature of much of this music. One ought to be stimulated by this approach more than repulsed, but I know that to hear such a potent 'slant' put on something one has heard played solemnly and literally over many years will be a shock. For me, Ton Koopman's work has what many contemporary performances do not have, viz a commitment to liveliness and rhythm. I'd better not name names now, but one eminent performer who has recorded all of Bach's organ works seems to me to lack any firm inner rhythm, I find this acutely distressing since it removes one of the strongest elements present!

 

As to the "suspirans tristis" the German expression is 'Seufzerfigur' an interval (falling semitone in a brief two-note phrase) which is supposed to symbolise sighing. There are others that one can easily spot and indentify in Bach's work. The interval of a rising minor sixth, for instance, is also a penitential interval much used in works for Passiontide. The great 'Erbarme dich' Aria in the St.Matthew Passion features it as does the Prelude in E minor (that partners The Wedge), or the Fantasia from the F&F in C minor.

 

Strongest and most symbolic of all is the Kreutzfigur, the sign of the cross which appears everywhere in Bach. His favourite Perfect Cadence has it in the bass. Imagine C, rising to G above, falling to G below and then settling back on C. you have four dots on the page - connect these and you have a visible cross. Even little intervals , say G, A flat, F, G can still give a cross pattern, they're everywhere! Numerology is everywhere too...anything with 3 is sacred, and to Bach the number 14 is very special - his own initials add up to 14. The letters of his two baptismal names add up to 14 as well...many works have 14 connections.

 

As to registration, I'm awfully sorry to disagree with anyone whose work I respect, but I cannot imagine any circumstances that would ever convince me that the B minor Fugue can possibly have been intended to be played either fast or soft. This is a most grand and stately fugue, I would say the grandest and most stately, but perhaps that honour goes to the Great C major - another case where a 32' pedal ought to be de rigeur IMHO.

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I’m glad someone has made this posting…

 

… is this really the Bach sound and style? Why have I wasted such a long time trying to play the organ…..? :)

 

I think I must own up to not being one of the "erudite" members of this board : neither am I a professional musician. I simply listen to it for the pleasure it gives me which puts me firmly in the majority as regards the population as a whole if not the membership of this board. That may explain why I have some difficulty in seeing this situation in quite such dramatic terms. Koopman's is a Bach sound and style but why on earth should it be regarded as the only one ? I do not know (and neither in fact does anyone else) but I am fairly certain in my own mind that Bach did not play his own music in exactly the same way with exactly the same registration every time, any more than throughout his life he had exactly the same thing for breakfast every day and took exactly the same time to eat it ! Life is simply not like that.

 

The dictates of "historical performance practice" should surely be regarded in exactly the same way as fire : "a good servant but a poor master". If a particular style of playing gives no pleasure to you as performer and no pleasure to those for whom you are performing what exactly is it that requires you to play in that style ? Why should you wish to do so ? Just as people have different tastes in food, in literature and in TV programmes , so it is perfectly permissible to have different tastes in the way you like your Bach to sound. Even better it is not a requirement that you be consistent : you do not have to pick a style and stick to it. I have Koopman CDs in my record library but I have just as many involving performances of Bach on quite inappropriate organs , employing Trombas and Full Swell. I listen to both styles with equal pleasure - no , truthfully, I prefer the Trombas as is my privilege.

 

So do not get downhearted. If the way Koopman serves up Bach is not to your taste, there are, at least as regards recorded performances, a number of different serving styles available for you to try in order to find one better suited to your personal palate. And if you find a taste which you like does it really matter if others prefer it done differently ?

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I've just found the details of the recording on the BBC radio 3 site it was

 

Prelude & Fugue in B Minor, BWV. 544

Ton Koopman (organ) at the organ of the Grote Kerk, Maassluis

TELDEC 4509 944582 track 4

 

And the organ specification is here

 

I wonder if any Message Boarders have heard it in the flesh.....?

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Strongest and most symbolic of all is the Kreutzfigur, the sign of the cross which appears everywhere in Bach. His favourite Perfect Cadence has it in the bass. Imagine C, rising to G above, falling to G below and then settling back on C. you have four dots on the page - connect these and you have a visible cross. Even little intervals , say G, A flat, F, G can still give a cross pattern, they're everywhere! Numerology is everywhere too...anything with 3 is sacred, and to Bach the number 14 is very special - his own initials add up to 14. The letters of his two baptismal names add up to 14 as well...many works have 14 connections.

 

I'm intruiged by the 14 references, as I hadn't come across these before. Can you emlighten further? I had some post grad academic teaching (as well as him being my internal assesor) from a chap who wrote a book about, among other things, number structure in Clavierbung III. All that in the P and F; 3 flats, 3 distict ideas in the prelude, 3 fugue subjects, 3 to the power of 3 entries of the fugue subject in the fugue etc...

 

I went on one of the RCO courses a few years ago and had a couple of lessons from a very eminient Dutch organist, and a very nice chap too down the pub afterwards. Anyway, when I mentioned my liking for Koopman, and in this case with particular reference to his playing of Buxtehude and the Bach Harpsichord Concerto discs, there was a chilling silence, followed by a number of comments expressing surprise and disdain that we 'English' players are taken in with such very personal and often very extrovert interpretations.

 

I didn't know whether to feel chastened or not.

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Though there are things I like (the touch, well detached, with some air between the notes),

I disagree with the registration (as nearly always) and with the phrasing.

Short values are too short, some long values are too long, and one lacks the

"declamation", I mean the "sense of the whole discourse", and get confused.

General tempo too fast for me (as always).

And yes, again, I'd try something more eastwards as an organ (as always...)

 

Pierre

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Sorry but this performance does nothing for me. It seems to have missed the grit and drama, the nature of the keys chosen, and the episodic nature of ripieno and concertino in the prelude. In short I am struggling to find the raison d'etre of the performance, and some of the articulation in the fugue I am still trying to work out. Horses for courses I suppose.

 

AJS

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I've just found the details of the recording on the BBC radio 3 site it was

 

Prelude & Fugue in B Minor, BWV. 544

Ton Koopman (organ) at the organ of the Grote Kerk, Maassluis

TELDEC 4509 944582 track 4

 

And the organ specification is here

 

I wonder if any Message Boarders have heard it in the flesh.....?

 

Oh yes - and played a little Bach on it, too. Wonderful instrument. I can't comprehend how anybody could describe it as making a "dreadful screeching sound" but chaque un à son goût.

 

Not the most wonderful recording, though. Far too close, as is often the case. Makes it sound like it is in a small, carpeted chapel, whereas the Grote Kerk is a fair size and quite resonant.

 

As to the interpretation - not my favourite, but I could live with it quite happily. I tend to agree with Pierre that it was perhaps too detached - but might that be the consequence of recording too close to the instrument?

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I'm intruiged by the 14 references, as I hadn't come across these before. Can you emlighten further? I had some post grad academic teaching (as well as him being my internal assesor) from a chap who wrote a book about, among other things, number structure in Clavierbung III. All that in the P and F; 3 flats, 3 distict ideas in the prelude, 3 fugue subjects, 3 to the power of 3 entries of the fugue subject in the fugue etc...

 

I went on one of the RCO courses a few years ago and had a couple of lessons from a very eminient Dutch organist, and a very nice chap too down the pub afterwards. Anyway, when I mentioned my liking for Koopman, and in this case with particular reference to his playing of Buxtehude and the Bach Harpsichord Concerto discs, there was a chilling silence, followed by a number of comments expressing surprise and disdain that we 'English' players are taken in with such very personal and often very extrovert interpretations.

 

I didn't know whether to feel chastened or not.

I think I remember that at the Organists' Congress in Cambridge in 1985 there was a lecture on Bach numerology with hand outs, that I have now misplaced. I think this was by John Bertalot who has also written on the matter in Bertalot, John: Spirituality and symbolism in the music of J S Bach. I. OrganistsReview lxxxvi/3: 339; 4(?) (2000), 222-225; 331-335..

 

While these ideas give an insight into the construction of a piece of music, why things are the way they are, does it make any differnece to the final sound? Several organist composers have schemes linking the spelling of words to the themes, B-A-C-H being the obvious one; and I remember reading something about Langlais -how the themes spelt out messages... It's nice to have reasons for things, but does it really matter if you know the reason or not? Clearly we don't know all of Bach's reasons...

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An excerpt from 'The Art of Organ Playing' by Edwin Lemare mentions this particular work:

 

"This Prelude, with its mournful and pathetic cadences, always seems to me to have been written more for the strings of the Orchestra than the Organ, and I always play it in a more or less orchestral way on the soft string-toned stops."

 

He then seems to contradict himself in another section about Bach in particular:

 

"...letting his superb counterpoint speak for itself, and not ruin it by introducing stop combinations which he never intended...".

 

I'm not sure I can imagine it being played in such a manner, but each to his own I suppose.

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""This Prelude, with its mournful and pathetic cadences, always seems to me to have been written more for the strings of the Orchestra than the Organ, and I always play it in a more or less orchestral way on the soft string-toned stops."

(Quote)

 

Such stops Bach had on the organs he played in his own area...

 

Pierre

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"I did: it is a really outstanding organ."

 

I think it WAS a fantastic organ. It is not at all well preserved (rather exceptionally in NL). The Garrels style (closer to Arp Schnitger than almost any of the other Schnitger students) is much better preserved in the organs of Anloo (when he was young) and Purmerend (when he was much older, it still has all its original reeds, unlike Maasluis). Unlike many other organs in NL, the later additions don't really complement the earlier material. The case is utterly fabulous.

 

Nonetheless, I'm always interested to read Pierre's thoughts, what does he like about it?

 

Greetings

 

Bazuin

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I heard it about 20 years ago, so I do not know if it is the same today.

 

As someone already said here, it benefits from a generous acoustics,

and this enhances any organ.

Besides this -but for sure dependant upon it- there is nothing screaming

there. The upperwork fits with the foundation without standing out.

And this is important in a time when the players are used to draw the

loudest mixtures about 90% of the time in baroque music.

 

It is not original, indeed. I know of another one in the same case,

the Aa-kerk, Groningen, which ranks quite high in my own

"little pets list" !

 

Here is a video which conveys a closer idea to this organ as it sounds

"in the flesh" (I may disagree with the playing, but I intend to document the organ):

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmaT5QxhVqs...feature=related

 

I am somewhat surprised with the strong ascendency in strenght in the tierce

combination, though (first part); it is as if those stops were meant as a Grand Cornet,

i.e., intended to work with a reed chorus.

It think this may be caused by the microphone siting, and I do not remember

such "harshness".

But otherwise this video is relatively fair.

 

Here is the Website of the organ:

 

http://www.garrelsorgelmaassluis.nl/start.htm

 

(click on the picture to enter)

 

Pierre

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Referring to Douglas Corr's more recent comments yesterday, Gordon Stewart did say in his talk (to the GMS in April) that the speaker originally "booked" for that occasion was John Bertolot and that JB was far more "into" the symolism thing than he. If anyone could let me have copies of the Bertalot articles that Douglas refers to I should be most grateful. I agree that such considerations don't greatly affect how the music sounds but they may influence the way one learns and prepares a piece for performance.

 

Malcolm

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Guest Cynic
Referring to Douglas Corr's more recent comments yesterday, Gordon Stewart did say in his talk (to the GMS in April) that the speaker originally "booked" for that occasion was John Bertolot and that JB was far more "into" the symolism thing than he. If anyone could let me have copies of the Bertalot articles that Douglas refers to I should be most grateful. I agree that such considerations don't greatly affect how the music sounds but they may influence the way one learns and prepares a piece for performance.

 

Malcolm

 

I think these curious details were a help/stimulus to Bach himself, but put there mostly for the Glory of God - like the medieval masons carving things with real care that everyone knew would never be seen again once the scaffolding came down.

 

I suppose knowing that something is special in some hidden way does make one look at it with new respect*. The Canonic Variations on 'Vom Himmel hoch' for instance - I would play the dots the same, regardless, but knowing how (for instance) the whole of one melody line is duplicated later in another part in double values does point up the genius/brainpower of the composer. In practical terms, I would have to ensure that my phrasing was consistent from one line to the other, but this is merely a good rule in performance anyway.

 

In my early years of Harmony and Counterpoint lessons, I was shown how in virtually all Bach Chorales the composer uses the perfect cadence out of all proportion in preference to all others. If there is any way of making a perfect cadence, into whatever key necessary, he does it! You could say that now we know why - the bass line of his preferred perfect cadence is the Kreutzfigur! [vide earlier posting if this needs explanation]

 

 

*An organ parallel:

My late friend, Father Charles Watson of Prinknash Abbey was known to some as 'the organ-building monk'. His opinion was regularly sought by fellow RC Clergy and on one occasion he was called in to advise about the Walker organ at The Sacred Heart, Wimbledon. On his journey to see it, he had read about the organ, knew its specification and history and had mentally prepared (as he told me later) to recommend that it be replaced with a smaller (mechanical action) organ. This would (in all probability) have been exactly the advice that other RC advisers like Ralph Downes and Dr.Rowntree would have given at the time.

 

Upon entering the organ case, however, his eyes were met with lavish use of polished mahogany in chests and so forth: parts that nobody but the humble organ-builder would ever see. He was overcome with the quality of the original construction and immediately changed his mind. 'This organ must be preserved as it stands!'

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I'm intruiged by the 14 references, as I hadn't come across these before. Can you emlighten further? I had some post grad academic teaching (as well as him being my internal assesor) from a chap who wrote a book about, among other things, number structure in Clavierbung III. All that in the P and F; 3 flats, 3 distict ideas in the prelude, 3 fugue subjects, 3 to the power of 3 entries of the fugue subject in the fugue etc...

I remember reading a fascinating article a long while back about the E flat Prelude and Fugue BWV 552. Not only did it discuss how often the number 3 appeared but, even more interestingly, how often the number 9 (the 'magic number') appeared. One of the properties which make 9 the 'magic number' is the fact that, if you have a larger number whose individual digits all add up to 9 when added together (say, for example, 144, 252), that number itself will be divisible by 9. I seem to recall that there are a large number of aspects of the fugue where the sum of the total can all be reduced to 9 - such as, for example, the total number of bars, the number of quavers, the number of B flats, E flats, A flats etc. I can't remember the details - nor where I read the article - but can remember being fascinated by it. Has anybody else come across it, and can they shed more light on it than my vague recollections?

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I think these curious details were a help/stimulus to Bach himself, but put there mostly for the Glory of God - like the medieval masons carving things with real care that everyone knew would never be seen again once the scaffolding came down.

 

I suppose knowing that something is special in some hidden way does make one look at it with new respect*. The Canonic Variations on 'Vom Himmel hoch' for instance - I would play the dots the same, regardless, but knowing how (for instance) the whole of one melody line is duplicated later in another part in double values does point up the genius/brainpower of the composer. In practical terms, I would have to ensure that my phrasing was consistent from one line to the other, but this is merely a good rule in performance anyway.

 

In my early years of Harmony and Counterpoint lessons, I was shown how in virtually all Bach Chorales the composer uses the perfect cadence out of all proportion in preference to all others. If there is any way of making a perfect cadence, into whatever key necessary, he does it! You could say that now we know why - the bass line of his preferred perfect cadence is the Kreutzfigur! [vide earlier posting if this needs explanation]

 

 

*An organ parallel:

My late friend, Father Charles Watson of Prinknash Abbey was known to some as 'the organ-building monk'. His opinion was regularly sought by fellow RC Clergy and on one occasion he was called in to advise about the Walker organ at The Sacred Heart, Wimbledon. On his journey to see it, he had read about the organ, knew its specification and history and had mentally prepared (as he told me later) to recommend that it be replaced with a smaller (mechanical action) organ. This would (in all probability) have been exactly the advice that other RC advisers like Ralph Downes and Dr.Rowntree would have given at the time.

 

Upon entering the organ case, however, his eyes were met with lavish use of polished mahogany in chests and so forth: parts that nobody but the humble organ-builder would ever see. He was overcome with the quality of the original construction and immediately changed his mind. 'This organ must be preserved as it stands!'

 

I too spent many happy hours with Fr Charles, and later with Fr Mark at Prinknash. Whilst I would not have necessarily done things the way he did, I had the utmost respect and love for the man who achieved so much with what largely amounted to gifts of an utterly disparate nature. I know the 'pup' lives on in the Grange, but what about the organ he had in his room ? It had some lovely 18th C English pipework. Prinknash was the only place I went where it was a pleasure to do the washing up.

 

AJS

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I too spent many happy hours with Fr Charles, and later with Fr Mark at Prinknash. Whilst I would not have necessarily done things the way he did, I had the utmost respect and love for the man who achieved so much with what largely amounted to gifts of an utterly disparate nature. I know the 'pup' lives on in the Grange, but what about the organ he had in his room ? It had some lovely 18th C English pipework. Prinknash was the only place I went where it was a pleasure to do the washing up.

 

AJS

 

 

I think that organ went out on a long loan to a student.

 

I gave him those 'lovely 18th century' pipes. They came from St.Nicholas Radstock who had bought a 'classical organ' with pneumatic action in the 1970s!!!

http://www.npor.org.uk/cgi-bin/Rsearch.cgi...ec_index=N12381

It was an extraordinary heap of junk based on (I guess) a small Norman and Beard. It was a unique conception, concocted by R&D in one of their most R&D moments!

 

The scheme on paper must have been drawn up to impress some desk-bound expert. It was nothing like the execution! So for example, the 'Blockflute' was made of harmonic flute pipes and the 'Krummhorn' was actually a perfectly conventional Swell Oboe. There was no open pipe below 4' on the manuals, but the 'case front' was made of enormous open zinc pipes (several from the 16' octave - none of them playable) all painted battleship grey with the tips cut off, resting on narrow pine boards and held in place with 3" or 4" nails. I wish I'd taken lots of photographs of it. It was an object lesson on how not to rebuild an organ - far worse than anything I've ever done, for a start! I once wrote to Alastair Rushworth to ask where the original organ had come from. He obviously smelled a rat in my (suspect) enthusiasm and declined to answer the letter.

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Clearly Cynic hasn't heard the Koopman recording of the B minor P & F or he might be tempted to express himself in rather less conciliatory manner. The reaction of Mr Kemp and Mr Corr and others is entirely understandable; there seem to me to be a number of factors which lead to their dismay. First, and it's not Koopman's or anyone's fault but the organ is very sharp; my own pitch memory plays me false all too often these days but it sounds closer to C sharp minor than C. This in itself can be unsettling even if you don't have pitch memory.

 

But surely the performance of the Prelude must take the palm (if that is le mot juste) for the most rhythmically slipshod and careless performance of any piece not only committed to disc but presented in any form as a performance. There is nothing "free" about it; it sounds like the effort of an enthusiatic but incompetent amateur, which is not how I have viewed Mr Koopman as a performer in the past. Cynic has made a large number of quite excellent recordings and he would never to allow such poor, unrhythmical and uncontrolled technique to be issued on a recording. Nor would his producer! It's almost worth having the recording just to remind ourselves of how bad a commercial recording can be. What an appalling offering to foist upon the public!

 

The fugue, I feel, fares better, although the player sounds quite uninterested in what he is doing. On the question of speed, I have thought from time to time about the tempo of the fugue, and I wonder whether anyone would agree with me that usually one can gauge the most effective speed of a piece not from the opening bars but more likely from a passage in the middle: bars 37 and on for a few, if taken too slowly can over-emphasise the fact that they are little more, dare I say, than high class note spinning; rather like similar passages in the BWV 565 fugue.

 

Mr Kemp raises another interesting point; how many of us interpret the music we play and direct as a result of having heard it that way many times in the past. We have got used to it and it sounds comfortable and familiar. Of course, it isn't always wrong, but going back to the score and revising it afresh can sometimes yield surprising results. When Benjamin Britten recorded Elgar's Dream of Gerontius many critics found the result unfamiliar and often unacceptable; the trouble was that in almost every case what Britten did was what Elgar had directed in the score! (I think I may have bored for Britain before on this subject . . .I plead that I have done nothing wrong and it's all within the rules).

 

Must go and deal with the other hornet's nest . . .

 

David Harrison

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