Something for a Friday: All of Bach

[Bryn]

I have lost track of Bach Fridays - this one came up on my you tube, and I have located it on All Of Bach.

https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-911/

Much as I admire Schornsheim's playing (what delights her Haydn survey offers), surely these Toccatas belong on a clavichord, rather than a harpsichord?

[Padraig]

Also provided by you tube, not All of Bach. Why I know not.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XVtkxtwWr5M

Instrumentation satisfactory, Bryn?

[Joseph K]

[Mandryka]

Interesting. Three melody instruments, two of them with identical timbres, but I don't think they're just doubling up, and a plucked instrument mostly in the background. As far as I know the only score we have is the organ score.

[Bryn]

Interesting. Three melody instruments, two of them with identical timbres, but I don't think they're just doubling up, and a plucked instrument mostly in the background. As far as I know the only score we have is the organ score.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonata_in_G_major_for_two_flutes_and_basso_continuo,_BWV_1039

[Mandryka]

Well blow me over with a feather.

[Padraig]

Thanks again, Joseph K.

This music from this ensemble just right after today's news reports.

[Joseph K]

You're welcome, Padraig.

[seabright]

[Padraig]

Belated thanks, and much appreciated. Wonderful arrangement.

Something equally wonderful for this Bach Friday:

https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/bwv-829/

[Mandryka]

The business of whether to use the thumb playing scales, mentioned in the notes to the 5th partita. Does anyone know whether it makes a difference you can hear?

By the way, there are many many organ pieces called preambulum, including baroque ones from the likes of Tunder and Buxtehude and Scheidemann and Weckmann and Lubeck and Scheidt - some of them quite substantial. It's true that JSB seems to have used the word for what are possibly teaching pieces -- like in the WF Bach little keyboard book. Maybe all those baroque preambula by Scheidemann etc were primarily teaching pieces too.

I think that Elina Albach plays really nicely -- I especially enjoyed the fluid phrasing and the way she plays the counterpoint in the sarabande.

[Joseph K]

How about this for unconventional instrumentation?

[Mandryka]

How about this for unconventional instrumentation?

The horror! The horror! Even this is better than that

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G-z0XxOigPs&ab_channel=TheSwingleSingers-Topic

We don’t know which instrument it was written for

Leonhardt argued very well that it was written for keyboard -- the argument turns on things like the sort of stretches in the score -- he actually argued that it was written for harpsichord but I've never understood that step.

We don’t know . . . whether Bach intended the music as material for practice or performance

If he didn't intend it for performance, it's hard to imagine why Bach would have added so many elaborations to the first version of the augmentation canon, included articulation and ornamentation indications in both the autograph and the first edition, included a cadenza in cpt8 and the opportunity for a cadenza in cpt 10, rearranged the three part mirror fugue as the more easily playable Fuga a 2 Clav.

The order of the 18 sections is unclear

But not the first 12, which are numbered.

we don’t know whether the piece was ever completed.

Humph

[Joseph K]

Well, I enjoyed it - though last night I only listened to the first three (not all involve voices).

[Padraig]

Well, I enjoyed it - though last night I only listened to the first three (not all involve voices).

I did too JK. I've bookmarked it for listening again. I think it's one way to present The Art of Fugue which suits this ensemble very well, giving the parts to various combinations of voices. I have not yet come to the end and I'm hoping that I'm in for a surprise. It has already been a pleasant change from the several versions I once had and on looking at my collection I see that I have kept only one - Rachel Podger with Brecon Baroque.