That's very useful.

I think the notion of 'schools' is a red herring.   We do have notions of
certain practices, but they do not neatly divide by geography and time or
even by individual. That's why I mention Bach,
who fits into many different notions of fingering.  Bach was an amazing
player, according
to contemporary accounts, because whatever he did, worked.
I do remember being told that using your thumb and passing it under are two
different
things; one can finger 1234 1234 without passing the thumb under.

On a similar note, organists often err by playing too smoothly with not
enough 'air' between strong beats.  This is an aesthetic that I don't share,
and
I suppose a valid performance practice for a particular era- just not the
era I'm
trying to evoke!

Micaela Schmitz

-----Original Message-----
From: Harpsichords and Related Topics
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of Judith Conrad
Sent: 22 November 2003 15:08
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: fingering fetishes


> I'd strongly question the credentials of people who ask 'what
> school do you use for historical fingering?'  Why? Because Bach used
> 'old' and 'new' system with thumb under and without. So BAch himself
> used two schools.  If you can't hear the difference, then why the
> 'fingering police?'  I wonder what were the two schools that
> person had in mind.
>
> Micaela

I am actually who brought this up, and it was a two-part post,
related but not entirely conflateable.  First part was the keyboard
person who had written in his own fingerings on someone else's Bach
score claiming they were the only possible authentic fingerings. I
simply don't think there is such a thing in the case of Bach,
although I am pretty sure that the heavily-fingered 19th century
piano edition of Bach with the fingerings derived from Czerny and
similar schools are seriously wrong, and I think you CAN hear it in
the playing if you use them. The purpose of those schools is pretty
much to make the playing so smooth that the fingering isn't part of
the articulation or gesture at all, is inaudible and invisible. Not
at all what Bach would have meant, I think, and not all that good an
idea in Schumann or Brahms either, in many cases, though one
certainly needs to play that smoothly in that usic many times.

But the person who came up to me and asked what school of fingering I
used was referring to my playing of Pachelbel, and what 'school' the
pedants would have thought I should have been using is I think not
entirely established for that period. It wasn't actually a stupid
question and I shoudl not have made it sound like it was. Pachelbel
is a bit earlier than Couperin (and from quite a different part of
the world) but considerably later than Sweelinck (but from a part of
the world that had been recently heavily stocked with Sweelinck
students). Does this mean he would have used Sweelinck-type
fingerings? I think not, simply because I don't think they work, they
slow you down too much and make rapid filigree sound choppier than I
think it was intended to. But clearly I shouldn't have been making it
sound as smooth as a Czerny exercise, and I like to think I wasn't. I
was however using my thumb pretty often; Pachelbel did after all have
thumbs. (Bach's feet had heels too, and I use them now and then when
I play his pedal parts.)

Judy
--
http://home.mindspring.com/~judithconrad/index.html