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Subject:
From:
"J. Claudio Di Veroli" <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Harpsichords and Related Topics <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 11 Jan 2017 20:36:08 +0100
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>Ibo wrote: ...

Dear Ibo. I do not discuss your unique knowledge of the sources and the
field. I discuss (and continue doing so) your deductions, sometimes.
(You are free to disagree with mine!)

About evidence that is not there. Can you show me evidence that NO Bach
organ had a Contra-B, in other words, is there concrete evidence about pedal
range for all the organs Bach customarily played upon?
(Either there is, and I misunderstood early remarks by you, and please give
me the details, or there is not, and I have my point).

> One cannot base any claim on the non-existence of evidence.

As a statistician I have to disagree, and strongly.  Two examples:

1 Rameau and inégales. Most players before (and many after!) K. Gilbert
found that, having he written treatises on all aspects of music and never
mentioning inégales, he meant that his music was not meant for them. The
evidence was not there! Then somebody noticed that in the Niais de Sologne
he wrote "notes égales". Why would he do this unless he assumed that by
default most pieces (those in agreement with the customary inégales rules we
know from other authors) were to have inégales?

2. F.Couperin temperament. When I first concocted it back in the 70's based
only on the music, they said it was not enough evidence. The evidence
appeared later with the studies about L. Chaumont and its very similar
tuning.

... and so on ...

> some German organists would find "unprofessional" to play a simple
keyboard > piece on an organ,
> Not just “some”, organists, authors, who belong to the most read authors
in music of their time. 

Do you wish me to quote the often discussed aspects in which Bach's music
differs from ALL the contemporary organists? Notation of triplets vs duplets
for example?

> >  But if the chromatic compass was so rare, then I fail to
> understand why JSBach wrote so many Fantasias and Preludes and Fugues with
> all those C# and Eb and F#.
> Even more problems you’ll have to explain, why Bach would write and even
publish pieces that consistently need c#’ and d’ in the pedal when this was
regulary not available (Saxon and Thuringian pedal keyboards standardly did
not have these notes).

"Regularly" it was not. Rarely most likely it was! 
Again we agree on the evidence but not on the deduction. 
Isn't it simpler to use Occam's razor? The simplest explanation is that Bach
meant the exceptional ranges for an exceptional organ, not extant not even
in documents! 
(Unless you can show me contrary evidence from ALL the Bach organs: how can
you have such evidence?).

> Obviously he had uncommon organs at his command,
> and this explains both temperaments and ranges.
> Obviously not. The organs he had at hand are in the respect of compasses
well known and their status has been published again and again, even in
English.

I find it difficult to understand how these publications can cater for a
hypotetical, but possible, organ that is no longer extant not even in
documentation. If only ONE such organ existed (and how can anybody prove the
contrary), again I have my point.

> That is again arguing from non-existence (see above). 

Indeed!

Have a happy 2017.

Clau



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