> Ibo wrote: Interesting also that the Fugue in a (BVW 865) from WTC 1
requires a pedal or a third hand at least in the three last bars: The organ
point of four and a half bars (does that say something about the tempo?) can
neither be held nor can the note be struck again by just one player in order
to sound through the final bar.

Indeed. I find this concrete evidence that the piece was meant for an organ
with pedals. AFAIK in Bach's time they did not feel our modern need to
adhere to the score faithfully: if pedals were not available, the player
would just play the pedal note one octave higher, for example.
 
The modern organist finds it strange to ask for a pedalboard and then score
for it just a few notes, but IMHO this may just mean that the work was meant
for a very-small-range pedalboard, such as the traditional
one-octave-short-octave one playing only the notes C-D-E-F-G-A-Bb-B-c. This
was the standard Italian pedalboard for centuries: possibly it was also
found in small Southern German organs (of which not many survive AFAIK).
Even a few large scale organ works (such as the Fuga on the Magnificat BWV
733 and the Pastorale BWV 590) use this restricted pedal range.

Best

CDV


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