> Michael wrote: it touches me, ...

Exactly the same said Francois Couperin in his treatise. BUT he was excited
by different things.

Many modern musicians are excited by NON-baroque performance manners. The
best advice I can give them in order to get really excited is to play more
modern music on more modern instruments!
 
The harpsichord music is not that expressive unless you add the early
manners for which the music was composed and the instruments built.
Inégalité is one of the main manners of French Baroque. They even pinned
inégales they barrel organs!

Far from being an academic thing, if properly performed the inégalité is
actually a recipe for variety: according to a few ancient rules but also and
mainly to context, you play some pairs almost égales, others more inégales,
others very much so, sometimes the two hands coincide, others they play
"staggered", in Allemandes you sometimes linger a bit in the first of every
4 or 8 notes, and so on and so on. To suppress the inégales in French
Baroque music is to delete something that is supposed to be there and adds
variety: the music becomes not just out-of-style, butf plain and boring!
 
It is like Mexican food. You cannot tell a Mexican: "Look, your food with
all that chili is very monotonous, let us make your Mexican food more
varied. Let me cook for you a Mexican mole with no chili at all". He/she
will retort: "You do not understand Mexican food. Chili is VERY varied: they
come in many different strengths and flavours, and can be cooked in
different ways and proportions! If you are Italian, feel free to suppress
chili, but do not try to cook Mexican food that way because it will NOT be
Mexican food at all!"

CDV


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