Nope, mine is a very general observation. Above, Teddy explains very well what I meant.

Exactly. Nowadays, conventional notation is quite straightforward and when it is not, the modern composer clearly explains new symbols or anyway what differs from common practice. As to the music of the past, it's not up to the editors to tell the performer how to play! A good edition should just make every effort to improve the readability of the musical text and give explanations about every questionable editorial decision, not take decisions in the performer's place.

Moreover, in Bach's time, there wasn't ONE performance practice ragarding rhytmic notation. For instance, Emanuel Bach aligned the 16th to the last note of the triplet, Quantz didn't. To add confusion to an already difficult matter, sometimes (not always) in Bach's autographs there is a graphical alignment among triplets and dotted rhythms. And lastly, during his life, Bach may have changed mind about rhythmic notation. There are a lot of things we don't know and cannot figure out.

The final section of the Polonaise-Fantaisie, or the Prelude Op.28/9.

Very well said. As a poorly educated pianist, I often and avidly watch (especially on YT) great pianists in action to "steal" fingerings and movements.

Well, I'm not intimately familiar with the Polonaise-Fantasie (one of the few Chopin pieces I can say that about, lol) but I can't think of anything in 28/9 that is written differently than it is intended to be played.

Thisis a good starting point (see also at the end of page 298).

Even the new PWM/Ekier Chopin Edition says that the 16ths should be played together with the last triplet notes. On the other hand, when Chopin wants you to play them after the last triplet note (at the end of the Prelude), he writes double dots.

By the way, I am not aware of 1/4 + 1/8 triplets in binary meter till the second half of the XIX century. That kind of rhythmic notation is not just Baroque stuff, but well into the Classical and Romantic period.

Interesting. I don't believe I've ever heard it played that way...but then, I haven't exactly listened to a great number of recordings of it.

I've also heard it mentioned that the same applies to Schubert, but that's the only example I can think of that I've heard of 'understood' practices in post-baroque music, not counting jazz swing.

One thing I do wonder, though, is if Bach wrote the 16ths aligned with the last note of the triplet, or it he wrote them as they're printed in my copy. I imagine he aligned them correctly, and they were un-aligned upon printing?

It's not your fault. I know 2-3 dozen different interpretations of the Preludes and only 1 pianist goes that way (it's Pollini, of course). Great pianists are often lazy.

I'll scan the PWM commentary about that issue.



Sometimes they were aligned, sometimes not (especially in autograph drafts). But what really propagated that misconception was the first editions (in both Bach's and Chopin's case).

EDIT: added attachment with the PWM commentary about that rhythmical issue (FE is the French Edition, GE the German one).

This particular ornament in the same gavotte (e minor partita) has been giving me trouble:



Now, I've just listened to GG play it on YouTube (that measure is at about 5:40), and I have a different recording on my iTunes, and on both recordings, he doesn't play that ornament at all. Every other recording I found had the ornament, not counting a horrible harpsichord version that was from an old-ish black and white film. I wonder if he had some sort of justification for not playing it or if he just decided he didn't like it.

Gould was far from being obsessed with HIP.
But you should if your teachers want you to be that way.

What is HIP?

And my teacher tells me all the time that if an ornament is bugging me too much I should cheat on it, not because she has no faith in me but because she is of the opinion that you shouldn't spend too much time worrying about something small. I'm happy with my persistence, though - even that crazy double ornament in the gigue is coming along!

Also, I think I have finally broken serious ground on the toccata. That fugue is...challenging. But I have started practicing the exposition of the fugue with the subject hand staying stationary through the ornamented part:



For instance, the first ornament in the LH played with 3-4, the next with 2-3, the next with 1-2. Then in the RH, the first ornament played with 3-2, the next with 4-3, and the next (which you can't see) with 5-4. It seems convoluted probably, but if I can't play the exposition like that, then I can't play this fugue, because all of those ornament fingerings are required throughout the fugue, usually with other voices in the same hand. If I can't play the exposition like that, with no complications, then I can't hope to play the rest of it properly.

Prattling on here, because I am so LD when it comes to piano technique, and I get excited when I make some progress.