Wholly agreed. Writing down their own fingering makes for a better understanding of the music and forces the player to think on musical and mechanical issues and solutions. I dislike any fingered edition (and btw, if a keyboardist is proficient enough to play the bwv 988, is of course able to decide his/her own fingering following his/her musical decisions).
A good fingering is possible, though. Or, better, two good fingerings, one for the piano and one for the harpsichord. The Wiener Urtext fingering is nonsense.
1 Like
A thread discussing specific fingering issues would be of interest to less proficient harpsichordists (like myself)…
As interesting as the “Art de toucher le clavecin” is, I find myself frequently wondering if my fingering choices might be improved…
There is so much knowledge on this forum…
Thanks Andrew. By the way, Domenico, please note that the confusing way to notate a mordent with the slash at the end (looking like a trill with ending) is found very often in J.S. Bach’s own manuscripts! (In my fingered editions of his keyboard works I have shown this in quite a few specific cases.). Bach also used “tr” and the traditional “m” sign interchangeable and, demonstrably, with exactly the same meaning. But of course modern houses such as Henle should know better: in 99% of the cases it is very clear which ornament is meant, and in a modern edition the correct sign should be used.
Dear Claude, please also note that F.Couperin’s L’Art de Toucher, although arguably the most complete account on mid-late Baroque Fingering, is by no means fully comprehensive. Most of his examples are for his “discovery” of the change-of-finger within the same note! Also, there are a few uncommon finger crossings that are not found in L’Art de Toucher, yet they are useful in some passages.
Not to speak of non-French fingering manners. Just to give an example, in France crossing finger 2 over 3 was considered old-fashioned by F.Couperin and contemporaries, but it was still in use in Germany and is useful in some passages with accidentals: very interestingly, quite a few passages in different keyboard works by J.S. Bach are most comfortable to play passing 2 over 3.
Andrew,
I also think a newer/more accurate version of the variations (whose name I will not utter) will be very useful, and I will help however I can.
In my own engraving projects I have used US letter size (since that’s what I have available to print tests on). But I use notehead/staff sizes slightly larger than what I consider ideal, so that if someone prints it out on A4 it still is readable. I also use generous layout setup which, again, will look decent on A4. People do need to be able to print things out – not everyone has migrated to playing from a tablet! I’m sure Andrew can set things up so that both sizes can print acceptably, if not perfectly.
The problem is that A4 is the standard used by all printers these days unless one wants bespoke sizes, which costs £££.
I tend to use larger staff sizes and noteheads for my editions since, as I approach 60, my eyes are not what they were. The thing is that pages that can be photocopied down to half size with a fresh montage for those wanting them are better than pages that cannot be reduced.
Of course, but one can just go ouside, both online or in person, and get some facility that can print and bind on beautiful large, creamy, 120 gsm paper that will live for decades.
A few suggestions for those who didn’t pay attention to the in-house printing until now. For the print, best is Indigo which uses true liquid ink, as opposed to toner wich is powder. High quality laser are good too but don’t know about longevity of the print, and they still must use a hot tube to fix the toner on the paper, which ruins the paper (did you notice the paper came out of the printer usually don’t lie flat but is cupped?).
Indigo or similar print technologies are widespread so you shouldn’t have problems in finding a print facility near you. Or you could use online facility. An excellent music-dedicated printing factory is Halstan in Germany and in UK. I had printed Claudio Di Veroli’s Watermusic transcription for keyboard, and it is gorgeous: warm aspect of the page as opposed to the somewhat “skinny” aspect of a laser-printed one (the liquid ink microscopically spreads and makes for fatter lines and fuzzy margins. You only see it when enlarged, but at normal size the eye only catches a warmer appearance). Since they were not many pages, I could have them saddle-stitched. Or you can ask for about every other binding type. Fast service and good prices even for one copy. Halstan is here: https://www.halstan.de/
Another printing factory, again music-oriented, is Aurioprint in Germany: https://aurioprint.onepage.me/
I didn’t try Aurioprint but I am sure it’s great as well. They both work for privates, orchestras, theaters, and publishing houses like Henle.
Or you can use a non-music-oriented printer factory.
Just be sure to send them a printer-compliant pdf flavour, they will tell tou how to do it or maybe they are willing to work on your pdf.
At the least, a pdf/A or pdf/X should work in every circumstances. Be sure to “flatten” it, to “black-and-withize” it, and to save enclosing the fonts or, better, to convert in outlines.
I explain the black and white thing. Even if every line and dot in your file is black, your file itself may be in colour, i.e. it can still save colour informations for each item in the file. This can lead to less-than-optimal print (but still good), or, depending on the particular printer, could make impossible to print. Or, if you have something in colour (I like to have the title on my title page in red, for example), just ask to the printer.
1 Like
While I agree that A4 is not a good keyboard format (the slightly wider US letter is a little better), the problem is to get a copy shop to print a B4, or whatever size, and bind it. In order to use reasonably heavy paper, they often have to use A3 and then trim it. Or do you have a better solution?
EDIT: I see you mention a possibility. How much does it cost at Aurioprint or Halstan?
David
Halstan price.
I ordered 4 copies, two copies for two different scores. Each 95 pages plus the cover (I designed it myself and sent the pdf). Saddle stitch.
73 euro plus vat. I didn’t pay the shipping. This was in March 2021.
1 Like
Derk van der Veen has done a very interesting new edition of the GV (or CU IV) which is freely available on IMSLP. He has actually created vector artwork for each engraved ornament sign (they were not standard punches) and has incorporated Bach’s corrections. His critical commentary is very detailed, and the score is easy on the eye. No fingerings, of course. Worth consulting! https://imslp.org/wiki/Special:ReverseLookup/825656
@DouglasA Thank you for that.
I am well into my Dorico edtion. There’s plenty of room for multiple good editions.
The van der Veen is quite nicely done but speaking with my professional engraver hat on there are quite a lot of infelicities, no need to detain this thread with that. Also, I don’t see the need for scans of hand engraved ornaments, as Dorico has all the baroque ornaments. I don’t see what he did as a big musicological plus, in fact, it looks downright ugly. I suppose the notation program he used did not have them. Schmid uses alto clef a lot, and one of my personal hobbyhorses is to get modern lazy musicians to learn the C clefs. So I am using the original clefs as per Schmid. As a courtesy to the aforementioned set I will be making a parallel and alternative edition that uses modern clefs. Also, he uses a very strange paper size 254mm x 304mm. I have no idea what format that is.
This will be a free edition. I’ll also make a small run of luxe hardbound copies for sale, in Klavierformat size (235mm x 310mm).
Yes, one can complain that both his and my paper sizes are inconvenient or hard to print at home, but A4 simply won’t cut it.
I’ll post when I have completed and proofed the work.
@domenico.statuto is very kindly assisting me in the making and production of the edition.
[Of course, engravers are always super critical of others’ work. 'Twas always so. 
]
Thanks Andrew. My contribution is less than minimal.
I agree with Andrew, the Van der Veen is not a model of fine engraving. Recreating the exact shape of the original ornaments does not make sense. But it is overall a very nice edition. It has a detailed introduction which discusses each controversial spot, with facsimiles. It has the table of ornaments taken from the Clavierbüchlein fir WF Bach. Bravo Van der Veen!
Andrew’s undertaking is going to bring us a very finely typeset edition, updated to the the best knowledge of the source, a few errors of the Baerenreiter and Henle editions corrected, music distribution on the staves more faithful to the original source (i.e. which notes go in upper staff, which notes go in the lower staff). And of course, alto clefs. I am one of the “lazy musicians”, but I must admit the C clefs do make sense. They are not difficult to learn. However, I can’t imagine a pianist wanting to make the effort, so it’a wise decision making a double editions with and without alto clefs.
Dom
I am bound here to disagree with both Andrew and Domenico.
I learned to read music aged 4, and started with the piano. Only started with the harpsichord aged 16, and it only became my main instrument aged 25. Up to that point 99.9% of the existing editions were the modern G- and F- clefs, including “facsimile but with modern clefs”. I was familiar with the C-clefs reading orchestral scores for viola and bassoon, and I still am, but I never became “conversant” with them. It is not that I am “lazy”: I can read the notes individually, but in spite of lots of examining originals with lots of C-clefs, I have never been able to read them at playing speed except for slow pieces. Which is why personally I keep using editions with modern clefs, sorry.
Hopefully younger generations will do better in this respect, but judging for the “success” of marketing monsters such as Jean Rondeau, I guess using modern clefs is the least of my present worries . . .
1 Like
I am just being naughty calling musicians lazy.
1 Like
Hi @CDV to be correct, in a private conversation with Domenico he reacted with horror when I told him the edition would be original clefs. It’s not him that is advocating that.
That’s why I decided to make two parallel versions.
I still maintain that if people can go to the trouble of unlearning modern fingering and using early fingerings suitable to the period they can go to the trouble of reading music with the same facility that 17-18c musicians had. Are we less capable than them?
And after all a vast amount of 18C keyboard music uses soprano clef. It seems a pity not be to fluent in the original manuscripts and/or facsimiles.
We all have our hobbyhorses. This is one of mine, as is well known.
1 Like
One of my hobbyhorses is NOT calling Jean Rondeau “monster of marketing”. He is, of course, but saying so makes seem he is only that. My opinion is: he is 1% marketing and 99% talent. Since a LOT of marketing has been put in his career, his talent is monstruous. Please forgive my hobbyhorse.
Re: clefs.
I reacted with horror, as Andrew says. But he is simply plain right and I had to concur. There is nothing preventing anybody to become fluent in playing with more clefs, since we all already play in two clefs. I am in the same situation as Claudio. I did read a lot of music, in particular opera manuscripts with all the singers clefs, so I am of course able to read them but I am definetely not able to play. The reason is simply that I never played in clefs, just read them. It’s a much different beast. I suspect the same can be said of you, Claudio, you could acquire the ability to fluently play through C clefs, if only you start playing them. Sorry you took offence by the “lazy” word, which of course was not directed at you and had no offensive intent. Please excuse me and let’s substitute “lazy” with “not interested to develop that specific ability”.
BTW myself I am lazy.
Dom.
1 Like
Dear Domenico, sorry if you like Jean Rondeau. I have been in touch with a few professional harpsichordists which I greatly appreciate, and there appears to be a consensus among colleagues that he is a monster as far as style is concerned. He surely has mechanical talents, but somehow he manages to do the two main “no-no” s of modern harpsichord playing:
- he plays everything with modern piano technique, no early fingerings AFAIK
- I still remember the often quoted sentence by William Christie, which he told me personally 30 years ago when we met: “In French-style music you play inégales as a rule: you only do égales when you have a specific reason not to do inégales”. Well, guess Jean Rondeau has lots of very special reasons, for he has recorded a lot of French and French-style baroque music and I still have to hear him performing a single inégale.
Please note that a recent review by Bradley Lehman, published in the USA, strongly criticises the excesses of Jean Rondeau in the recent Goldberg Variations performance. I also find this performance full of arbitrary readings of the score.
1 Like
Rondeau’s Goldberg can be heard online complete here:
Now please go, for example, to 31:30, variation 13:
lots of “romantic rubato”, i.e. failing to keep the tactus, with ridiculous ritartandi here and there, changes of general tempo, and other things that (as very well documented) were out of place in the Baroque era. A Romantic ritardando at the end of the first section.
A repeat with added ornaments: as demonstrated, this was highly unusual at the time: when they played with added ornaments, it was as a separate “Double” (of which Bach left quite a few written-out examples), not as the repeat. There is a good reasoning why this should not be done, if I remember well written by Tartini.
Another annoying and anachronistic custom of recent harpsichord playing, of which Rondeau is a true champion, is to linger forever (twice, three times the written duration!) in randomly-selected weak-beat notes, and also in the second section on a seventh chord.
Perhaps worst of all, a nasty tendency of playing slow movements all legato, again against well-documented Baroque manners.
I could go on for hours . It is for me a catalogue of things to avoid when trying to approximate, as best as we can, a Baroque-style performance.
1 Like
I’ll not give fuel to character assassination, which no doubt will continue to happen if I say all the reasons why I do like him. Not everything of him, to be sure, but enough to be charmed by his talent. Of course, style is a different thing than musical talent, isn’t it.
However, since you mention Lehman, I usually do appreciate his viewings and most often agree with him, so would you please point me towards his ranting review of Goldberg? (Which of course I don’t find “romantic” at all) A link or photocopy or pdf or something. Thank you in advance.
Dom
Ps of course I am not impressed by the sheer mechanics and speed. Usually I am bored by musicians who just show up.