Sorry to disagree, Domenico!
Incidentally, I have had very strong and public disagreements with Bradley Lehman, but then he has written on different subjects, we disagree sometimes, we agree elsewhere. And he is a fine and stylish performer, which is important.
I googled and found out: the Review was published very recently: in the American Record Guide, Jul/Aug 2022 issue.
AFAIK it is only available in printed form.
Excuse me, just a quick note. You are not meaning “no early fingering” automatically equals to “modern piano technique”, don’t you.
Piano tecnique with all the arm and wrist weight and movement; thumb used as a pivot when passing, i.e. putting on the thumb a good wealth of weight; fingers losing contact with the key; and so on. Does really Jean Rondeau play like that? Never noticed, I swear.
Of course I am not, thanks Domenico for clarifying this matter. Rondeau may not have what I would call a perfectly nice “finger based” harpsichord technique, but he certainly does not use piano weight technique. He just uses modern piano fingering.
[This said, guess we all agree that when we move from modern to Baroque fingering, it is not just using different fingerings for the same passage: the whole way of moving the fingers is different, the way to move the hand across the keyboard is different, the default position of the hands over the keyboard (actually often “out of the keyboard” in traditional technique) is different.]
As already noted by Mark Lindley almost half a century ago, Baroque fingering has two important effects:
Douglas, thank you for mentioning van der Veen’s edition; overall it is very good and I had not heard about it.
I do, however, agree with Andrew about the appearance of the ornaments. I have experience in making computer fonts and have created one with Baroque symbols, designed to reproduce original shapes as closely as possible. If anyone would like it (or a specimen in PDF format) just let me know. It is under the Open Font License so there are no restrictions on its use.
Along with his recording of the Goldbergs, Jean Rondeau recorded some of his thoughts about harpsichord playing and related topics. I found it worth watching (of course some will not agree with what he says). It’s about 8 min. long and is here.
Regarding clefs: I think that two versions is normally the best way to go. That’s what I do in my own projects. Otherwise, a large portion of players just won’t use it. (I myself am only gradually getting better at playing from C clefs, although I can read them.) Making a good edition is such a large undertaking that the result should not languish unused.
On a more positive note: one of my projects that I posted on IMSLP had, last time I checked, about 2/3 modern clefs and 1/3 originals downloads. That was more than I expected for the original version!
I know that, would you provide me, privately, a scan of it?
Thanks
Dom
Indeed, will write to you privately about this, Domenico.
If anybody has harpsichord-friendly fingerings for Variation 21 of the Goldbergs that they would be prepared to share, I would be very grateful (yes, I know, I should be able to come up with my own but it is just a far too time-consuming and unconvincing process for me and I no longer have a teacher to consult).
Many thanks.
Matthew
Hi Matthew. I have a full hypothetical reconstruction of the fingering J.S. Bach and W.F. Bach would have used for the Goldbergs. I have scanned for yourself Var. 21, which I attach for private use only, with the obvious proviso that no copies should be sent outside Jackrail, because they would violate copyrights (this is my unpublished fingering upon a published edition based on Bach’s corrected copy).
Certainly to be played on a single 8’ stop, and not as slow as sometimes heard. This is the only Goldberg variation where I use a “singing buff”. I play it mostly non-legato, except for some passages.
Thank you very much Claudio, that’s extremely kind of you. I’ll let you know how I get along.
Best,
Matthew
While on the topic of printed editions, I just discovered Kenneth Gilbert made an edition and published by Editions Salabert. I have a lot of respect for Gilbert. What do people think about this edition? It’s still available secondhand in various places.
Is the “Maintenon 1978” edition I mentioned earlier. Excellent in my opinion.
Sorry Claudio, I don’t understand this sentence or what it is referring to. Edit post, perhaps (via the web interface).
My bound edition of the Goldbergs was bound and in the process they did not include the title page, so I cannot be absolutely sure. But I seem to recall that it is the Salabert edition. The introduction is signed “Kenneth Gilbert, Maintenon 1978”. It was the first edition after the discovery of Bach’s own copy of the printed edition, with his handwritten corrections.
So @CDV what is your opinion of the quality and scholarship of the edition? No fingerings I hope. There are some secondhand copies drifting about the internet.
Scholarship: there are some 20 lines of comments on particular passages/varints. This said, I find this Salabert edition excellent: well printed, no errors. It has no fingerings.
My own copy has my own Baroque fingerings which I wrote down back in the 1990s: they are a reconstruction of how J.S. Bach and W.F. Friedemann would have played it. Not surprisingly, this technique fits the score very well.
However, as we know, in the 1740s C.P.E. Bach and other younger players/students of J.S: Bach’s circle were in the process of adopting the universal thumb passing. One more reason why I have no plans of publishing a Baroque-fingered edition: it would raise huge discussions about whether this or that passage should be fingered this or that way. All sterile, since the Goldbergs were published precisely as the transition was taking place. Clearly, there is no possible “correct” or “historically plausible” fingering for the Goldbergs: we can only reconstruct how J.S. Bach would have played them (following evidence from fingerings from his milieu and the full agreement with F.Couperin’s fingering system), or else, and very differently, how C.P.E. Bach would have played them just a few years later, following his Versuch of 1753, and not too dissimilar from modern piano fingering.
