Re: GG: Mistakes on Well Tempered Clavier ???!!!

[Edsma4933 <Edsma4933@aol.com>]

Hi folks, esp. Kristin and Alun and Junichi, this is Melissa Stewart from SUNY
Buffalo back on the list with a different address that has little to do with
me (except I am Ed's ma).  Just by way of introduction, my field of interest
is tonal music theory, particularly Bach, though I have retired from my
performing career on flute, violin and viola, and even my private teaching of
flute violin and piano.  Alun will remember me also as an avid hockey player,
writer of a dissertation entitled "The Rise of Hockey-Playing Amongst the
Aristocratic Masses," or some such thing (that last bit is Alun's joking).

Anyway, to get to the matter at hand...

In a message dated 98-05-06 09:27:46 EDT, kb@cs.umb.edu writes:

<< 
 The quote I remember definitely implied it was a finger slip, i.e., an
 actual mistake, not caught by Kazdin or anyone else ... (out of
 approximately eleventy-bazillion recorded notes, it would be
 statistically shocking if at least one of them was not wrong :-)
 
 In general, my impression is that GG very rarely actually plays
 different notes than the composer wrote.   >>

I don't know about GG's copy, but my WTC has a very obvious mistake in Bk 1,
Fuga IV (C# minor), Peters Edition, plate no. 8400 (I include this information
because even if you don't have Peters, other publishers can use Peters plates,
so it will say 8400 at the bottom of the page).  Anyway, in bar 8, in the
soprano, there is an E missing in the third entrance of the subject.  My copy
does include the beginning of the entrance halfway through m. 7, and continues
after the missing note in m. 9, but no E in the middle.  To clarify, the first
entrance shows the five-note subject in the bass, C# - B# - E - D# - C#; the
second transposes it to G# - F## - B - A# - G# in the alto, but the third
entrance has only C# - B# - <  > - D# - C# in bars 7-9.  So the C# should go
in the brackets.

I don't have a copy of GG's recording of that particular fugue handy, so I
can't tell you whether or not he puts that note in.  Whether he does or
doesn't, it should be pretty easy to tell, since it's an iteration of the
subject and in an exposed part.  Maybe someboday else could tell.

Just my two cents worth, and a hello to all...

Melissa Stewart
SUNY at Buffalo