Hi,

I have always loved the A Major Prelude and Fugue (although I see no reason for it to be termed "gentle" and indeed played so, as many people do) but had never got round to playing it. So I did! I found the prelude very easy, however I think the fugue is one of the most difficult of any I have played. So much care has to be taken in deciding where the accented beats and stresses lie. I also think the manual parts are very fiddly and awkard.

After getting rather frustrated with my Barenreiter copy I went on imslp and got the BGA, suddenly everything was easier! As far as I can tell just by playing through there is only one difference in the actual notes: a g natural/sharp in bar 141 and 142.

Is it wrong just to play from a different edition to make it easier due to how the notes are layed out, and am I sort of cheating by doing this? Also have other people had these experiences?

Andy

P.S

Does anyone study organ at the RNCM that was up in Edinburgh about a month ago with Simon Lindley?

No, but I was at college with him.

that won't be me... think he's only teaching one student at college (that's what my tutor's told me many months ago anyways).

can't wait till september (officially off to RNCM!!! )

By no means Andy. I play BWV 565 off a totally unauthentic edition prepared by Edwin Lemare - I never get quite the same effect with Barenreiter or Novello

I play this one too. Together with BWV535, the two are probably the least demanding ones (apart from various shorter P & F's). Im away from home at the moment but my edition is Novello. I'll check tonight on the G sharp/natural issue.
I've just also resurrected the F Minor with which I failed ATCL in 1965 !

Certainly not! In principle there's nothing whatsoever wrong with choosing what is most practical. The big problem is that it's rarely quite that simple.

It never ceases to amaze me that performers will quite happily spend an inordinate number of hours making sure they can play all the notes exactly as they appear on the page, while at the same time remaining totally unconcerned as to whether those printed notes themselves are correct. When you think about it, whether you play a wrong note accidentally or whether you play accurately a note that is printed wrongly in the score, the end result is the same: they are both wrong notes. Ultimately, what's the difference?

What constitutes the right notes can get to be quite controversial at times, especially where a composer has produced several different versions of a work, but, as a general rule, I would always advise seeking out an edition with reliable, up-to-date scholarship. You owe it to the composer. Unfortunately, older editions, especially those freely available on the internet, are often very seriously deficient in this respect and really ought to be avoided. Opting for an edition because of its helpful layout (page turns, distribution of the notes under the hands) is OK in my book; opting for an edition because some of the readings themselves are easier would be wrong-headed - unless of course those easier readings can be shown to be what the composer actually wrote.

By all means choose the most user-friendly edition, but my advice would always be to try to check and amend it against a modern, reliable, scholarly text. With Bach that would mean Bärenreiter's Neue Bach-Ausgabe, or Beckmann's edition for Breitkopf. I don't know the old Bach-Gesellschaft at all well, but, from what I have seen, some of the texts seem pretty good, others rather dodgy. You could probably amend them easily enough.

Funny, so was I!

It never ceases to amaze me how many wrong notes are printed, especially in certain hymn books. Did I really say Mission Praise ?

One would have thought that after a few editions the publishers would have corrected any initial errors, but they just seem to keep adding new ones.

SB