The First Performance Edition, Griepenkerel 1819

by Rosalyn Tureck, edited by Xoán Elías Castiñeira Varela

Table of Contents

Editor´s Praeambulum

1. Its Place in History
   • I.A. Inheritance and Influence
   • I.B. Augustus Friedrich Christopher Kollmann
   • I.C. Griepenkerl´s Performance Edition
   • I.D. Dating
   • I.E. Griepenkerl´s Historical Position
   • I.F. The Title Page
   • I.G. “Für das Pianoforte”: “…pianoforte playing was chiefly had in view…”
2. Comparative Study of Note-text and Orthography in P212, P1803, Hoffmeister and Kühnel, Griepenkerl 1819
   • II.A. Fantasia
     • II.A.1. Note-Text and Orthography– Alterations and Additions
     • II.A.2. Key Signature
     • II.A.3. Accidentals. Measures 9, 14, 22, 23
     • II.A.4. “The Error”. Measures 49-58
     • II.A.5. Measures 50-51
     • II.A.6. Measures 61-62.
       • The Accidentals
       • Linear Intervallic Structure
       • Harmonic Direction
       • Appoggiatura – Structural Functions
       • Intervallic Scale Structure
       • Summary
     • II.A.7. Measures 71-74. Inversion
     • II.A.8. Measure 73, Fourth Beat
     • II.A.9. The Coda. The Final Chord
3. Performance Indications
   • III.A. Bemerkungen
   • III.B. Dynamics
   • III.C. Tempo. Commentary on rubato in J.S. Bach
   • III.D. Embellishment
     • Fantasia. Measures 20, 21, 25, 27, 30, 33
     • Measure 59: The Note-text; The Double Appoggiatura – Measures 59/60; Repetition
     • Arpeggiated and Non-Arpeggiated Chords. Measure 74
     • Commentary on the Embellishment Concept
   • III.E. Fugue
     • III.E.1. Note-text. “Changes and Markings”
     • III.E.2. Measures 46-47 – Passing Tones, Schleifer, Grace-Note
     • III.E.3. Mm. 49-52 – Stemming, Hand Disposition
     • III.E.4. Octaves
     • III.E.5. Alterations in BG, Bischoff, Henle
     • III.E.6. Summary

Endnotes

Editor´s Praeambulum

The third essay of Rosalyn Tureck´s triptych on the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue was written as a chapter in her unfinished book on the History of Bach Performance. Situated within the full context of the book, the chapter on the Griepenkerl edition of 1819 would have acted as a sort of equator between the music world that saw the initial reception of BWV 903⎯the world of Bach´s sons and Forkel, the first three printings⎯and the world of nineteenth- and twentieth-century reception, with its “parade” of editions and transcriptions. As Dr. Tureck explains in the ensuing essay, the Griepenkerl publication is the first edition of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue to alter considerably its until then ‘pure’ note-text by adding numerous performance indications and additions suited to the early nineteenth-century piano (or fortepiano) rather than to the harpsichord or the clavichord. In Dr. Tureck´s view, Griepenkerl´s approach to the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue inaugurates a manner of editing music scores and a new understanding of how to interpret music from bygone eras, thus establishing the scholarly basis on which many later editors, teachers and performers would work.

The chapters anteceding this essay on the Griepenkerl edition deal, in Dr. Tureck´s book, with the manuscript sources of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue and its branches; with Forkel, his manuscript P212 and the tradition established by him; and with the history of the first three printings (Hoffmeister and Kühnel, PN74, 1802, A. Kühnel, PN74, ca. 1806, and C.F. Peters, PN74, 1814/15)[1]. The latter two printings are identical, and were based on the same plates, PN74. In Griepenkerl´s printing, the original plates PN74 were used for the first four pages of the Fugue; new plates (PN1512) were made for the entire Fantasia and the remaining pages of the Fugue.

The chapter succeeding the essay is, or rather, would have been, an account of the process of inheritance of note-text alterations, additions and stylistic accretions via the reception history of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue as revealed in its successive editions from 1802 until approximately 1970. The list of nineteenth- and twentieth-century publications that were exhaustively analyzed by Dr. Tureck includes, among others, the commentaries on the work published by Adolf Bernhard Marx (see Bibliography); the Czerny edition fingered by Franz Liszt; Jean Andre [Johann André Musikverlag, Offenbach], 1847; Hans Bischoff, Steingräber Edition, 1880; von Bülow [Bote und Bock, Berlin, possibly 1903]; Augener Edition, London (ca. 1910-15); von Bülow, annotated by O. Morgan, London, 1915; Heinrich Schenker, Universal Edition, Vienna, 1910; Ferruccio Busoni, Simrock, Berlin, 1902; Ernest Naumann (Bach Gesellschaft), 1890; Peters Edition, fingered by Clara Schumann [date unknown]; Alexander Siloti, Moscow, 1916; Emil Sauer, Peters, 1943; Hermann Keller, Peters Edition, Leipzig, 1963; Edwin Fischer, Berlin, 1928 [Wilhelm Hansen Edition, Copenhagen, 1955]; Georg von Dadelsen and Klaus Rönnau, Henle, Munich, 1970, etc.

Dr. Tureck also studied several transcriptions, including the one written for viola by Zoltan Kodály, Boosey and Hawkes, London, 1951; by Max Reger, for organ, 1902 [Vienna, Universal Edition, 1905]; and by Ferruccio Busoni, for cello and piano, Leipzig, Breitkopf & Härtel, 1917. Dr. Tureck´s material on these and other editions (corresponding to chapter V) is abundant. However, when Dr. Tureck died in 2003, her writings not yet thoroughly ready for publication. The essay below will hopefully provide substantial information, and also awake enough curiosity in the reader as to approach any performance editions of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue with a freshly sharpened critical and enquiring mindset.

To the modern keyboard performer and teacher, whose eyes are accustomed to the scholarly cleanliness of the most recent, and excellent, urtext/critical editions of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue[2], and whose ears are unavoidably influenced by the now several generations of interpretations on period instruments, Griepenkerl´s subjective treatment of Bach´s composition will quickly arouse some degree of suspicion, and, perhaps, of indignation. We must remember, however, that during Griepenkerl´s lifetime (1782-1849), the debate of authenticity was already in full bloom and occupied numerous, and sometimes, passionate, discussions within the classical music world of that era. The epistolary debate between Friedrich Conrad Griepenkerl and Adolf Bernhard Marx that appeared in the German journal Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung in the course of three consecutive months is a notable example thereof, and has been commented by Rosalyn Tureck in some of her articles on the issue of authenticity[3]. These letters evidence Griepenkerl´s self-assumed historical position as a custodian of the ‘correct’ interpretive tradition stemming directly from Johann Sebastian via Forkel and Bach´s sons, and are strongly confronted by Marx´s defense of the enlightenment that “research and examination”[4] may and must contribute to the achievement of integral interpretations of music from the past. The debate initiated by Griepenkerl and Marx has been seen by Dr. Tureck as a remarkable ancestor of discussions very much in vogue in the twentieth century:

“This dissension, prolonged over a century and a half, has nurtured hostility, as in a civil war, between musicians and musicians, scholars and scholars, and antagonism between scholars and performers, all of whom are equally ardent in their separate goals. The accumulation of controversial material has provided enough for the erection of a great wall, built up between the past and the present, partitioning the territory of each orthodoxy. It is my contention that the time has come for this wall to come down altogether. It has been as confining and repressive as the old Berlin Wall, and there is growing evidence that it may soon come to resemble it further. When one considers, fully and objectively, the wider context of the issues and their fundamental implications, it becomes clear that the divisive wall is not only unnecessary but also obstructive to the cause of great art” [5]

With this chapter on the Griepenkerl 1819 edition, and with her book, Dr. Rosalyn aimed to fully illustrate her conviction that, in order to interpret a musical composition, one needs not only analyze the mindsets and approaches of previous historical epochs, but also, perhaps even more importantly, how these influence our own approaches and beliefs, which in turn will shape those of future times. By identifying one by one the devices used by Griepenkerl in his editing of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, as direct inheritor of the ‘correct’ Bach performance tradition, Dr. Tureck is not only dismantling the edifice of these doubtful claims, but calling forth a warning for the performers of our own time⎯a warning against dogmatic assumptions and uninformed approaches to musical interpretation.

EDITORIAL PRINCIPLES AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The original material revised and presented here is archived in the Rosalyn Tureck Collection at the Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston University. The editor wishes to acknowledge his gratefulness for the assistance provided by its staff in the preparation of this project.

Abbreviations used:

M., m., Mm., mm.: measure, measures.

Mus. Ms., Mus. MS, and Mus. Mss.: manuscript, manuscripts.

Gr. 1819 refers to the Griepenkerl edition. B-G refers to the Bach-Gesellschaft edition, Ernest Naumann, 1890.

Endnotes are Dr. Tureck´s original notes and are signaled as bracketed roman numerals. Full references are provided separately in the general bibliography.

Letters in lower case denote pitches above middle C; capitals denote pitches below middle C. In harmonic analysis, distinction is made between major, minor, diminished, triads and sevenths as follows: Major, large Roman numerals, viz. I; minor, small Roman numerals, viz. ii; diminished, small Roman numerals plus symbol for diminished, °, viz. vii°.

Dr. Tureck´s original writing uses both British and American spelling. For the sake of consistency, all texts have been edited in American English.

I. Its Place in History

I.A. Inheritance and Influence

Griepenkerl´s edition is the first (1) to consider all aspects of the performer´s art⎯fingering, technical approach, dynamics, tempo, embellishment realizations and additions, rubato and performance practices with allusions to C.P.E. Bach and Forkel. A.F.C. Kollmann produced and edition for performers in 1806, but it is virtually unedited except for the arpeggio section of the Fantasia, which receives a simple doubling of the arpeggiated chords (2).

In 1819, Peters published, for a second time, the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue (3). This publication was no mere duplication of the original plates PN74 (4), as were the previous two printings; it declared a historic departure from unedited scores. Asserting its derivation from sources linked in a direct line to Johann Sebastian, the 1819 publication created a new style of presentation of a music text. This second Peters printing, with Friedrich Conrad Griepenkerl as editor, is a performance edition, unequivocally the first of its kind for the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue. Griepenkerl´s introduction of performance indications and note-text alterations into the music score was not only a radical departure from the unedited conventional style of music publication. It enunciated a specific style of performance. In doing so, Griepenkerl severed connections with the original note-text and format of PN74. As a result, his edition launched an era that would have far-ranging influences well beyond Griepenkerl´s vision. Despite the famous title-page claim of direct lineage from J.S. Bach (see p. 11), the aesthetic and performance concepts that Griepenkerl´s additions and alterations represented propelled the edition headlong into the stylistic sensibilities of the second decade of the nineteenth century. Moreover, Griepenkerl´s edited score formed the model for the liberally appended note-text additions and expanded performance indications that received increasingly expanded treatment in the ongoing editions of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries (5). It will be shown in this essay that, far from representing the intentions of Johann Sebastian as claimed on the title page, this publication is a primary source and model for the anachronistic concept and performance of Bach´s keyboard music throughout the nineteenth and much of the twentieth century.

The scrutiny to which Griepenkerl´s indications and note-text alterations is here subjected applies directly to the pervasive, egregious misdirections for keyboard performance that persisted for so long a time. Moreover, similar faults have existed in Bach performance in all other media as well, owing to the development of the aesthetic values that originated in the mid- to late eighteenth century, which dictated stylistic taste throughout the nineteenth century. The primary significance of Griepenkerl´s edition lies in the fact that he, in his Bemerkungen (Notes), contributes credence to the claim on the title page that all contained within stems from Johann Sebastian himself. Griepenkerl 1819 is the fountainhead from which editions published by distinguished editors and performing musicians sprang. Griepenkerl formed, unwittingly, the basis for continuous stylistic anachronism and wrong-headed interpretation for well over a century, from which some sections of the music world have still now not fully recovered, as some twentieth century editions show.

I.B. Augustus Friedrich Christopher Kollmann

What may be considered an avant-courier of a performance edition is that published by Preston in England in 1806, edited by Augustus Friedrich Christopher Kollmann. It has received comparatively little notice for it was overshadowed by the well-known, more extensive, though later, efforts in England of Samuel Wesley and Carl Friedrich Horn (6).

Augustus Friedrich Christopher Kollmann (b. Hannover, March 21, 1756; d. London, April 19, 1829) emigrated to England from Germany in 1782 at the age of 26. He brought with him a reverence for J.S. Bach, and as early as 1799 recommended publication of the entire Well-Tempered Clavier. (7).

The cover of his edition of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue bears the statement:

“Johann Sebastian Bach´s Celebrated Fantasia Chromatica for the Piano Forte with some additions by A.F.C. Kollmann, organist of his Majesty´s German Chapel at St. James.”

“With some additions” presages the future trend of editorial recommendations and “additions” to the composer´s music; in a great leap, these came to sudden full flower in Griepenkerl´s 1819 edition (8).

Author of a number of works on theory and composition, and the recently accredited translator of Forkel´s biography of Bach that appeared in 1820 (T. Boosey and Company, London) (9), Kollmann deserves greater recognition for his early pioneering efforts in his chosen role of protagonist in the cause of Johann Sebastian. He prepared the ground for the wider-ranging, effective activities of Wesley and Horn that has brought them fame, but he received comparatively little attention both from his contemporaries and from posterity.

In respect to the early publication of Johann Sebastian´s music, the Aria and two variations from the Goldberg Variations were published in England as early as 1776 in Sir John Hawkin´s General History of the Science and Practice of Music (10). This meager representation of Bach´s great work was not likely to incite a great deal of attention. However, Kollmann´s assiduous efforts, on record from the late 1790´s onward, to bring significant and complete works to the attention of the British music world would place him as the chief initiator of the Bach movement in England and, possibly, the principal catalyst in clearing the way for the later successful exertions on the part of Wesley, Horn, Benjamin Jacob and others.

Kollmann does not give interpretive indications in his edition of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue; in this respect, the note-text is “clean”. But he does fulfill his promise of “additions” that, he asserts, will enhance performance. His editing and his reasoning for these “additions” are best explained in the Preface in his own words:

“Preface by the Editor
The present Fantasia being universally esteemed as the most sublime Piece of it´s kind hitherto known, it would be unpardonable to make any real alteration in it. But I have found that Players in general are at a loss how to divide the plain Chords of the first Movement, intended for Harpeggios, because some of them consist of more Notes of parts than others, and a long series of Harpeggios becomes tiresome if it does not contain a proper variety of divisions. This difficulty I have endeavoured to remove, by dividing those Chords in a manner as I hope it will be found corresponding with the nature of the Movement.

And as the running passages of the same Movement have but the effect of a Solo for one hand, tho´ in the original both hands are to come in alternately, as the letters D and S. (right and left hand) shew, I have ventured to double them in the Octave and other Intervals, for the use of both hands at once. This I flatter myself will be found an addition to the effect of those Passages, as well as it affords a greater practice than otherwise, and it can not be considered as rendering the Piece too difficult for such Players as the whole of it requires.

That said additions I have distinguished from the original by expressing the former in small notes throughout, and the latter in large ones”

The device of large and small typeface for distinguishing editors´ entries from the original note-text became a frequent practice throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Kollmann inserts the “small Notes” on the staff alongside the “large Notes”. Griepenkerl and most later editors had their added versions printed above the staff. These came to be viewed, quite wrongly, as legitimate variants stemming from primary sources.

Kollmann´s edition represents one of the earliest attempts to activate consideration of, and accommodation to, the needs of the performer via the music score. The Griepenkerl 1819 edition, replete with detailed technical and interpretive instructions, shoots far ahead of Kollmann. The goal of both these editors was a performance edition. Previous to Griepenkerl´s publications, editions generally inhabited a kind of Garden of Eden. Unclothed, bared of an editor´s interpretive array, the music score appeared “pure”. This kind of “purity” was, of course, true of the first three printings of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue from 1802 until Griepenkerl´s publication in 1819 (11).

I.C. Griepenkerl´s Performance Edition

The concern for stylistic tradition and the emergent impulse to provide performance instructions, so modestly initiated by Kollmann, are represented with no inhibitions in Griepenkerl´s edition. His methodology in editing initiated a dual discipline involving both the editor and the performer. As a result of Griepenkerl´s 1819 edition, the approach to performance highlighted the principle of historical identification on the part of the performer and editor. Subsequently Griepenkerl edited a large collection of Bach´s keyboard works in similar performance editions that, with adjunct editors, have been published continuously to the present day (12).

Expanding publication and multiplying public performances of eighteenth-century music in the early nineteenth century accentuated the need for editing note-texts and for contributing technical and interpretive instructions. In Griepenkerl´s estimation, the technical aspect of performance was so significant that he devotes three quarters of his Bemerkungen (two and half of under four pages of notes) to instructions on fingering and touch (13).

Griepenkerl declares that the stylistic indications in his edition emanate from his teacher, Forkel, and via Forkel, from Wilhelm Friedemann in a direct line back to Johann Sebastian himself: the title page of this edition announces its famous statement:

Neue Ausgabe mit einer Bezeichnung ihres wahren Vortrages, wie derselbe von J.S. Bach auf W. Friedemann Bach, von diesem auf Forkel und von Forkel auf seine Schüler gekommen.

“New Edition with directions for its true interpretation, these having been transmitted from J.S. Bach to W. Friedemann Bach, from them to Forkel and from Forkel to his students. ”

(Translation by Rosayn Tureck)

In his Bemerkungen, Griepenkerl refers to and confirms this claim:

… und um nur auf die Spur ihres wahren Vortrags zu kommen, muss er sich einige Vorschriften gefallen lassen, welche der auf dem Titelblatt angegeben Überlieferung entsprechen.

“… and in order to arrive at the right track of authentic performance, he (the performer) must follow directions about which a statement is made on the title page.”

(Translation by Rosalyn Tureck)

The testimonial to Forkel is impressive, as is the modest demeanor of Griepenkerl. However, the end product must be viewed and assessed for what it is, rather than what it is claimed to be, even by a Griepenkerl or a Forkel. The distinguished editors of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, Henle edition 1969/79 refer to the “Forkelschen” edition, meaning that of Griepenkerl 1819, but they are skeptical about the extent of the realization of its claim; they question the note-text groupings and “how much Bach´s way of playing is preserved in the edition of Forkel´s pupil Griepenkerl…” (14). When one considers the circumstances of Forkel´s acquisition of manuscripts from Wilhelm Friedemann, for instance (15), as well as the dates of his lifetime (1759-1818) and the profound aesthetic changes that took place in the second half of the eighteenth and first quarter of the nineteenth centuries, the validity of Griepenkerl´s claim⎯of a direct tradition from Johann Sebastian through those who lived after him well into the nineteenth century⎯pales; it strains credulity.

I propose to show that Griepenkerl´s choices in his deliberate alterations of note-text and additions of embellishments, as well as in his general stylistic concepts, are a product of a performance aesthetic endemic to the Romantic movement, already in full blossom well before 1819, and, additionally, that Griepenkerl´s performance directions represent a pianoforte mode of expression that was highly developed by the second decade of the nineteenth century (see I.E). In fact, the accretions of later editors´ performance indications and note-text deviations in nineteenth- and twentieth-century editions of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue were based on the identical interpretive instructions originally printed there. Moreover, it will also be shown that the publications have served, repeatedly, as the model for increasingly inflated instrumental treatment as the nineteenth century drew to a close. The precise imitation and continuous adoption and expansion of Griepenkerl´s performance indications to nineteenth-century views of piano performance and the fact that Griepenkerl´s indications are indeed based on the capacities of the pianoforte, not on the clavichord as has been claimed by some, and certainly not on the harpsichord, it is likely possible that Johann Sebastian would in 1720 or even in 1730 have allocated this work specifically for the “Pianoforte”. Besides, the title page of Griepenkerl 1819 specifically says “für das Pianoforte”.

The development of solo instruments synchronized with the spread of public performances and the growth of orchestral ensembles. The early nineteenth-century was particularly active in continuously enlarging the volume and expanding the diversity of instrumental sonorities. This led to the proliferation of emphasis on the part of composers and performers upon varied tonal colors and greater tonal volume. The nineteenth-century editions of Bach repeat and reflect increasingly dilated versions of Griepenkerl´s interpretive indications. These indications multiply in number and swell in application; they remain stylistically identified with Griepenkerl´s indications, but his influence as the parent source for both note-text and performance is evidently not perceived or acknowledged by later editors.

The Bach Gesellschaft editions opened new channels of inquiry and activity that deepened in the late nineteenth century and grew throughout the twentieth century to represent a central approach to Bach scholarship and performance attitudes. Yet the fifty years of editorial activity on the part of the Bach Society, from 1850 to 1900, the year of the completion of its powerful edition, did not halt the tide of overblown, romanticized performance treatment by editors of musical and scholarly distinction. Inevitably, performers and teachers working from these editions, universally approved in Europe and North America, carried on the anachronistic aesthetic.

The claim of authenticity, in Griepenkerl´s edition was first advertised in the catalogue of the Leipziger Messe for Michaelmesse 1819 as follows: “Bach, J.S., Chromatische Fantasia. Neue Auflage nach Bachs Original Manuscripte. fol. Ebend. Ebenders.” (16). The ascription to “Bach´s Original Manuscripte” is incorrect. No “original Bach manuscripts” of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue were known to be extant even in 1802. As is well known among scholars, no autograph exists. As noted in the commentary on Forkel above, the manuscript that formed the basis for Mus. Ms. P1083, the printer´s model for the 1802 printing, was Forkel´s manuscript in his own hand, P212 (17). Further, a number of significant note-text alterations from P212, made already in P1083, the printer´s model for the 1802 printing, and again in the 1802 printing, reprinted in subsequent Peters editions including that of Griepenkerl 1819, remove this edition from any possibility of viewing it as following “Bach´s Original Manuscripte”. A new plate number, 1512, was required for the entire Fantasia and the last four pages of the Fugue, owing not only to Griepenkerl´s copious added interpretive markings but also to his radical changes in the note-text (18).

The claim of “Bach´s Original Manuscripte” arose no doubt from Griepenkerl´s and Forkel´s dogma that Forkel´s manuscript represented the direct inheritance of Johann Sebastian´s original score with PN74 being its unaltered reflection. There are some cogent reasons for their belief:

1. Forkel´s acquaintance with Bach´s sons, W. Friedemann and Philipp Emanuel,
2. his having received a manuscript of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue from W. Friedemann, and
3. Griepenkerl´s studies with Forkel⎯all lend support to such a desirable end. But in regard to original manuscripts of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, “Bach´s Original Manuscripte” was not in evidence even at the time that Forkel began his correspondence with Hoffmeister and Kühnel in 1801, when in his first letter to them he recommended the publication of this composition (19). There is no other evidence that a prize such as the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue was extracted from “Bach´s Original Manuscripte” in 1802, for ultimately the manuscript used for the printer´s model was in Forkel´s hand (20), not in that of Johann Sebastian, Wilhelm Friedemann or anyone in Bach´s circle.

Forkel did not produce any edition of Bach´s works although his biography of 1802 is of great interest and value, but his representation of Sebastian´s way of composition and performance in Forkel´s ideas were immortalized in filtered form in the 1819 edition via his student, Griepenkerl. The exact amount of Forkel´s own original implantation in this edition will never be known. The edition is, irrefutably, not original Bach. Given the circumstances, the exacting standards of the present day cannot tolerate such a claim of authority.

Although Griepenkerl refers to tradition and C.P.E. Bach in his Bemerkungen in the 1819 edition, he departs from the latter´s tradition in his performance recommendations, as becomes clear in comparing earlier sources such as C.P.E. Bach´s Essay. C.P.E. Bach advises arpeggiating chords “up and down twice”; but Griepenkerl alters this by saying: “We think it better to play each chord up and down only once and the final chord in each arpeggio series only up once.” (21) (See “Performance Indications”)

Yet Forkel stands as an undeniable, though somewhat ghostly, ancestral source in the development of Bach editions. Having supervised the first edition of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, published just previous to his Bach biography, Forkel, although not properly an editor, is however, the first advisor-cum-editor of this work. By way of his manuscript, Forkel retains not only his position as primogenitor of the published note-text, but his manuscript P212 also forms a bridge through the seventeen years that elapsed between the first printing and Griepenkerl´s first performance edition. Ultimately, however, the 1819 edition remains that of Griepenkerl, and, in the final evaluation of this publication, it is he who must be held accountable for its positive and negative aspects.

In 1819 this edition was presented with an aura of such inclusive and absolute authenticity that it was eagerly accepted in the early epoch of growing historical conscientiousness. Not only did it form a prototype for succeeding distinguished musician-editors, with reissues of their editions persisting virtually to the present day (22), but the life of its alterations from P212 and PN74 was extended by editors who copied from editions modeled upon it rather than from their consulting original sources. As late as 1951 a new edition, by way of an arrangement of the Fantasia for viola (23), by no less a musical personage than Zoltán Kodály, includes an error originally copied from a misreading of Griepenkerl 1819 that was repeated continuously by many of the editors who inadvertently followed Griepenkerl and his imitators throughout the entire nineteenth and well into the twentieth century (24).

Griepenkerl, then, became the chief model for many editors, and despite the publication by Ernst Neumann of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in the Bach Gesellschaft edition in 1890, which returned the work to the basic note-text of Mus. Ms. P421, dated 1730, the Griepenkerl edition continued to be republished and performed according to its 1819 note-text and based on its performance indications.

We do not know whether or not Griepenkerl was able to consult Forkel´s manuscript (P212) of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue. He does not mention it in his four-page Bemerkungen to the 1819 edition, or in any of the prefaces in his later editions of the work (25). Comparison of the note-text of PN1512 with Mus. Ms. P 212 shows that Griepenkerl, rather than on Mus. Ms. P212, based his edition on the plates of PN74, which contains already variants. (26) As comparison shows, Griepenkerl duplicated the departures from P212 in PN74. Additionally, he also interposed his own departures from PN74. As for performance indications, PN74 contains some slur and embellishment symbols (27). Griepenkerl adds profuse performance indications that appear for the first time in this publication of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue; these, plus the note-text departures, necessitated, as noted above, the creation of the new plates, 1512. In effect, therefore, the Griepenkerl 1819 edition represents and end to the age of innocence in music editing. From this point on, the editor assumes the role of guardian, rightly or wrongly, or “original” text and performance intentions as well as the role of a director of taste and style for teachers and performers.

The aesthetic ethos that Griepenkerl established is maintained, then, in many successive editions throughout the nineteenth century. This continuance⎯as compared with the allegation of inheritance from Griepenkerl, Forkel and his students, Wilhelm Friedrich and Johann Sebastian Bach⎯is not the result of an oral tradition; printings are virtually absolute in their precisely set down symbols (f, p), tempo indications (Allegro, Presto, Adagio), tempo nuances (retard., accelerando), etc. Although even these are subject to cultural aesthetic values, and individual responses, they do represent precise directions as to what is intended by composer or editor or both. The degree of carrying out these directions by the performer is a subjective decision. Tradition, whether oral or written in symbols, is always subject to the interpretation of each successive era as well as of the individual recipient.

I.D. Dating

The announcement of the Griepenkerl edition, with its reference to “Original Manuscripts” cited above, appeared in the Frankfurt and Leipzig Fairs catalogue for Michaelmesse, 1819. Michaelmesse falls on September 29. This announcement, therefore, applies to the Fall Fair. The announcement signifies that this edition was ready for public purchase by September 29, 1819, and, more likely than not, the music and books listed in the catalogue were to be displayed at the Fair. Griepenkerl himself signs his Bemerkungen in the edition with the date of April 10, 1819. The near six-month period between April and September is reasonable for the time required for the preparation of the edition for publication.

The Bach Reader states that this Peters edition was issued in 1821 (29). No documentation for the dating is shown. If this were correct, two years would have passed between the announcement in the Michaelmesse Fair Catalogue and the publication. It seems most unlikely, in the light of Griepenkerl´s own date entry in his essay in the edition, as well as of the advertisement printed in time for the Michaelmesse Fair of 1819, that Peters would have wasted two years before issuing the edition. I have found no evidence to support such a delay or to imply circumstances that may have required a two-year suspension of the publication. On the contrary, D.W. Krummel in his Guide for Dating Early Published Music writes: …“a fair-catalogue entry is certain proof that a given work had actually been published, since the exhibition of copies at the fair is presumed” (30). My dating is based on primary sources for the publication announcement. Therefore, long ago in 1976 [6], I queried the dating of 1821 given in The Bach Reader for the publication of this Griepenkerl edition. My correspondence with the co-editor, Arthur Mendel, on this matter confirms the accuracy of my 1819 dating. Consulting secondary sources of Max Schneider and Hans David, Prof. Mendel corroborates the fact that 1821 is an error (31).

I.E. Griepenkerl´s Historical Position

Griepenkerl´s chief claim to fame lies in his editions of Bach published by Peters. Born Friedrich Conrad in 1782, he died in Brunswick on April 6, 1849, the year previous to the establishment of the Bach Gesellschaft in 1850. He was a well-established teacher and a man of intellect and scholarship, as evidenced by his treatise Lehrbuch der Aesthetik (32). Although some aspects of Griepenkerl´s education looked backward to Bach via Forkel, Griepenkerl´s own cultural roots were enmeshed in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Even by the time of his birth, concepts, forms, structural processes and stylistic performance practices had altered drastically from those that had formed Johann Sebastian Bach. It is sufficiently clear that by the late eighteenth century, instruments and their tonal sonorities and performance treatment had developed in directions unknown to Sebastian.

Beethoven´s birth, for instance, anteceded Griepenkerl´s by twelve years. All of Beethoven´s 32 piano sonatas were composed between the years 1792 and 1822, his Fifth Piano Concerto, the Emperor, op. 73, as early as 1809. Opus 106, the Hammerklavier Sonata, was finished within the very year of Griepenkerl´s edition, in 1818/19. The music of the composers of the era of Griepenkerl´s lifetime was based on principles of form and structure fundamentally alien to Johann Sebastian. Griepenkerl was thirty-seven years old when his edition was published. Carl Maria von Weber, born in 1786, only four years after Griepenkerl, and living concurrently with Griepenkerl, died much earlier than the latter, in 1826. Weber, renowned as a concert pianist as well as a composer, had composed most of his music between 1802 and 1819. Weber´s professional concert pianism and distinctly virtuoso pianistic concerti and concert pieces were the height of fashion when Griepenkerl was in his twenties and thirties. Weber had only seven more years of life when Griepenkerl´s edition was published. Heinrich Marschner (1795-1861), Meyerbeer (1791-1864), then famous composers of operas, and Spohr (1784-1859) were among other distinguished contemporaries of Weber and Griepenkerl. Hummel (1778-1837), a piano composer and performer par excellence who performed one of Forkel´s own concerti, was another (33).

Despite his clinging devotion to a direct tradition from Johann Sebastian Bach, Forkel, having been born as late as 1749, grew up in an era, rooted not in the baroque but in the classical concepts of form and structure that vibrated with overtones from the Empfindsamkeit Stil. He matured during the years of the dramatic development of Sturm und Drang that swept everything along with it⎯form, structure, aesthetic values, social behavior, etc. The movement away from the roots that formed Johann Sebastian was already evident in the earlier part of the eighteenth century. The famous attack on Bach by Johan Adolph Scheibe was published as early as 1737. Scheibe´s views reflect the rapidly moving current away from baroque floridity to “naturalness” and the lightening textures of style gallant and classicism [7]. Having praised him on other occasions, Scheibe writes:

“This great man would be the admiration of whole nations if he had more amenity (Annehmlichkeit), if he did not take away the natural element in his pieces by giving them a turgid (schwülstig) and confused style, and if he did not darken their beauty by an excess of art… In short, he is in music what Mr. von Lohenstein was in poetry. Turgidity has led them both from the natural to the artificial, and from the lofty to the somber; and in both one admires the onerous labor and uncommon effort---which, however, are vainly employed, since they conflict with Nature” (34)

Sixty-five years later Forkel writes of Johann Sebastian:

“At the beginning of the last century it was the fashion to overload single principal notes upon instruments with so much running up and down as it has lately become the fashion again to d so with vocal music. Bach so far showed his deference for this fashion as to compose some pieces in this style, too. One of them is the Prelude in E minor in the First part of the Well-Tempered Clavier. But he soon returned to Nature and to pure taste, and altered it into the form in which it is now engraved.” (60)

In the same vein, he writes:

Every decade has some forms or turns of melody which are peculiar to it, but which generally grow out of fashion before it expires. A composer who thinks to have his works descend to posterity must take care to avoid them. Bach, too, in his earlier years, struck on this rock. His first compositions for the organ and his two-part Inventions, in their original form, are full of flourishes in the taste of the times. The compositions for the organ have remained as they were; but the Inventions have been greatly improved. The public will soon have an opportunity to compare them together in their ancient and later form, as the publishers have taken the laudable resolution to suppress the first edition and to deliver to the subscribers an improved one in its stead” (35)

The editors of The Bach Reader comment on Forkel´s assertion:

“Here, too, Forkel errs. The prelude (E minor) appears in the Clavierbüchlein for Wilhelm Friedemann (1720) in the simpler form of an exercise for the left hand with plain chords in the right; the more elaborate version, then, is the later one.

The earliest and latest holographs of the Inventions both contain few ornaments. In an intermediate holograph Bach added a considerable number to certain pieces, apparently so that they might be used as exercises in playing ornaments.” [The added triplets in the first Invention, C major, BWV 772a, are a case in point. R.T.]

The correction is well founded in its chronology. Forkel was mistaken (37). The version containing what the editors of The Bach Reader term the “plain chords” is the earlier one. The embellishment surely does provide a “more elaborate version”. Forkel´s evaluation, based on his desire, rooted in the aesthetic/musical orientation of the second half of the eighteenth century, for “nature and pure taste” led him to channel Johann Sebastian´s goals into those more representative of the classical style of the mid/late eighteenth century (38).

It is questionable that the unembellished version (BWV 855a) was “an exercise for the left hand” as the editors of The Bach Reader state. This so-called “exercise” must have represented a good deal more than that to Johann Sebastian. In the later version (BWV 855), the figure in the bass forms the sole motivic material, in both the upper and lower parts, making up the entire second half of the Prelude. The first half of BWV 855 is an embellished realization of the original chordal progressions, the “plain chords” set down in the earlier version. The material in the bass is motivic. The successive sixteenth notes in the bass figure could be approached as an exercise for developing dexterity and evenness of tone and rhythm in a young hand. However, no informed musician of that time would perform this version with “plain chords in the right” hand. It is more likely that the exercise, more demanding for Wilhelm Friedemann than a repertoire practice figure for the left hand, was the task of filling in tasteful embellishment figurations for performance, such figurations connecting each chord in their harmonic progression. This is what Sebastian did in re-forming this composition as a Prelude to be included in the second, later volume of his Well-Tempered Clavier. Typically, this greater requirement of musicianship, judgment and good taste is implicit in the notation shown as “plain chords”.

The desire for a return to “Nature” in the mid-eighteenth century, which saw the dominance of style galant and the spread of Classicism, influenced every aspect of art and life. The rejection of “turgid” (Scheibe) baroque figurations, complex, restless structures, and rich contrapuntal textures along with the total departure from these in the mid- and late twentieth century, coincide with the early protestations of Rousseau (1712-1778) against the “artificial” in favor of the simple and natural. Rousseau´s impassioned plea in his Preface to his prize-winning essay “Discourse on Inequalities Among Men” (1754) states his case:

“O man, whatever may be your country, and whatever opinions you may hold, listen to me: Here is your history, as I believe I have read it, not in books by your fellow men, who are liars, but in nature, who never lies. Everything that comes from her will be true; if there is falsehood, it will be mine, added unintentionally.”(39)[8]

In an intellectual environment that was ready for it, Rousseau stimulated a turning point in thought and art that took fire as a result of his impassioned proselytizing. Germaine de Stael, a great admirer of Rousseau, emphasized the nature of his contribution in saying: “He has invented nothing…he has infused all with fire.” (40)

As eras move from one aesthetic position to another, the flow and change of aesthetic taste, forms and media are necessarily reflected in the gathering harvest of each age. Bertrand Russell comments on this phenomenon in relation to the romantic movement:

“in order to characterize the romantics, it is necessary to take account not only of the importance of aesthetic motives, but also of the change of taste which made their sense of beauty different from that of their predecessors” (41)

Forkel (1749-1818) lived, in his most impressionable years, in the aesthetic atmosphere in which the sensibilities of Emfpindsamkeit and of the classical era were transmuted to the romantic Weltanschauung. In 1772, Carl Philipp Emanuel himself told Burney he had arrived fifty years too late to hear the great traditions of Bach and Handel (42). In 1772, Forkel was twenty-three years old. He also was fifty years too late to experience the great traditions of Sebastian in an original unmodified version. When Griepenkerl was born in 1782, Goethe was already thirty-three years old. Sturm und Drang literature had taken hold with Goethe´s Goetz von Berlichingen, published anonymously in 1773, five years previous to Griepenkerl´s birth. In 1774, the sentimental excesses of Goethe´s short novel Die Leiden des jungen Werthers overwhelmed the sensibilities of the artistic world. Earlier, Jean-Jacques Rosuseau, with his continued writing and spreading fame, had effected sweeping changes in aesthetic attitudes and values that brought corresponding metamorphoses in new forms and styles of expression. He died in 1782, four years before Griepenkerl was born.

The power of Rousseau´s and Goethe´s influence extended far beyond literature and behavioral attitudes. Their influence in the music of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries is inescapable. Concepts of form, compositional techniques, stylistic sensibilities, modes of communication, performance devices⎯all are consequent upon and reflect the goals and vision of their epoch. The influence of such men as Rousseau and Goethe, and that of their followers, oxygenated the era that produced the 1819 edition of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue.

The interpretive indications in the 1819 edition have been viewed as the representation of pure clavichord style. The clavichord rose to a peak of eminence in the second half of the eighteenth century, but not because it represented the sensibilities of the earlier first half of that century. Its capacity for refined expression in subtle tonal degrees of subjective emotional states suited the Empfindsamkeit protagonists perfectly. Although Forkel writes that Bach “…liked best to play upon the clavichord…”, Forkel´s unqualified statements about Sebastian´s tastes are to be viewed with the hindsight of our time and the enlightenment that modern research has provided. Forkel may indeed have heard this said, possibly by C.P.E., whose own interest in the clavichord was well known (43). Given the beauty and sensitivity of the clavichord one need not doubt that Sebastian was drawn to this instrument. But late eighteenth-century taste is too late for interpretive applications to a composition conceived before 1730 by Johann Sebastian, who was born in 1685.

Griepenkerl is loath to give up the clavichord and lauds it in his Bemerkungen; he devotes a major portion of them to clavichord technique. But his interpretive indications in the music score represent the stylistic pianoforte playing of the time. The clavichord´s capacity for minute volume changes and crescendo and diminuendo is its primary characteristic, but the flux of volume is contained within a very small range, even on the larger, stronger clavichords of the late eighteenth century. Moreover, this capacity was most marked and effective when applied to single notes rather than long phrases. Gradual increase and decrease of volume spanning long phrases are not only uncharacteristic of this instrument but also extremely limited in application. The beauty of clavichord performance lies in the subtlety and finesse of minute tonal nuances that express intimate, personal sentiment.

Griepenkerl´s performance indications, when applied to a clavichord, are crude and overstated. Regarding dynamics, even allowing for the larger-toned clavichords of the second half of the eighteenth century, the wide dynamic scale that Griepenkerl sets down throughout the Fantasia⎯from pp to f⎯does not represent the nature of this instrument. Such a volume scale is native to the pianoforte. There could be no stronger validation of the fact that this volume range and Griepenkerl´s dynamic indications belong to a pianistic aesthetic and its early nineteenth-century tradition. Stylistically, Griepenkerl´s interpretive indications reflect the mode of instrumental expression that emanates from the era of Empfindsamkeit, which found sympathetic new roots in Romanticism. Griepenkerl´s interpretive directions cater to the values associated with notions of expressing “natural ” and “spontaneous” emotion as envisioned by the naturalist-romantics of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Gr 1819 was the single seminal source for the note-text and performance instructions for keyboard performance that were presumed to be stylistically authentic, and upon which so many later editions of this work are based. The “romanticized” performances of Bach´s music that are discredited by most scholars replicate Griepenkerl´s directions. It is, therefore, from the heritage of Griepenkerl that scholars and musicians of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries reacted so strongly. Acceptance of Griepenkerl´s edition was immediate because Griepenkerl, associated with Forkel, was a respected figure in the Bach renaissance, and because the claim to direct descent in an unbroken line from Johann Sebastian was irresistible. But one of the finer nuances in the general acceptance lay in the fact that the interpretive style of the music score was one with which Griepenkerl´s contemporaries identified aesthetically and instrumentally. By 1819, Griepenkerl´s interpretive indications were the very stuff of the nineteenth-century romantic notions of expressiveness; they dovetail perfectly with the established aesthetic orientation and the pianistic treatment of dynamics on the piano of that era.

The urge towards manipulation of levels of volume, which is characteristic of tonal treatment on the clavichord, although in a limited volume span, was not restricted to the clavichord or to the fortepiano. This trend emerged in other areas as well. The well-known Mannheim orchestra led by Johann W.A. Stamitz, who was appointed to the position of director of chamber music to the Elector of Mannheim about 1745, developed a crescendo/diminuendo style that had profound influence upon performance in general. Stamitz and his sons, the most famous of whom was Karl, carried on their musical composing activities as innovators in the development of symphonic form, and as performers in the new style, with great success in Europe and Russia (44). The gradual but relentless improvement of the pianoforte, with its flexible capacity for graduating dynamic treatment, moved in unison with the aesthetic climate of the time favoring free, individual expression of varied nuances of emotion as well as varieties and expanding degrees of volume.

The title-page statement of Gr 1819, made with no doubt in all good faith and integrity of intention, merits the respect it has received. However, this publication produced a style of editing for performance that forfeits its own title-page claim to “wahren Vortrags, wie derselbe von J.S. Bach auf W. Friedemann Bach…”⎯wishful thinking, as opposed to the reality of the stylistic directions reflected in Griepenkerl´s edition, compels a fresh appraisal of its contents, style of thought, and its performance treatment. Griepenkerl´s seminal work merits deeper analyses than it has received heretofore and in consequence, a more clearly focused appraisal of its place in history, both in terms of its sources, its claims, and its influences upon posterity. Its unthinking acceptance and the continuous imitation of its misdirections stamp it as the most influential model for the anachronistic keyboard performance from which the music of Johann Sebastian suffered for over one hundred and fifty years.

I.F. The Title Page

The title page carries the famous lineage statement:

Chromatische Fantasie für das Pianoforte von Johann Sebastian Bach. Neue Ausgabe mit einer Bezeichnung ihres wahren Vortrags wie derselbe von J.S. Bach auf W. Friedemann Bach von diesem auf Forkel und von Forkel auf seine Schüler gekommen.

″Chromatic Fantasia for the Pianoforte by Johann Sebastian Bach, New Edition with specifications for its true interpretation, the same handed down from J.S. Bach to W. Friedemann Bach, from them to Forkel and from Forkel to his students″

(Translation by Rosalyn Tureck)

The claim is vast. Since it can be said with certainty that the Chromatic Fantasia und Fugue was composed before 1730 (45), this would mean that a manuscript text and a performance style would have been transmitted over a period of sixty-nine years, immune to the human errors in copying manuscripts, to the mutations of human aesthetic values and sensibilities, and uninfluenced as well by changing forms, structures, musical idioms, instrumental techniques and sonorities. Channels of taste do tend to flow into succeeding periods where gradually developing new stylistic interests establish themselves. Conservative spirits do continue to cling to past stylistic conventions. But the flow diminishes with time no matter how determined its protagonists, who like all others become infected (for better or worse) with the new, knowingly or unknowingly. In the European culture of the restless eighteenth century, sixty-nine years is too long a time for a tradition, handed down orally (and aurally) to be preserved directly in a ″pure″ state.

Griepenkerl did not introduce the lineage claim. He may be absolved from the responsibility of initiating this claim. A declaration of the inheritance from Wilhelm Friedemann had been announced by Hoffmeister and Kühnel on June 10, 1801, in a printed leaflet publicizing their issue of a second book of the “Collected Clavier and Organ Works” (46).

“…engraved (printed) after the improved originals by him, which were handed down from the eldest son W. Friedemann⎯the well known, in the last year of his father´s life had his masterworks from him⎯to Herr Doctor Forkel and these to us”
(Translation by Rosalyn Tureck)

Here, then, is the initial claim of direct descent from Johann Sebastian through Friedemann and thence to Forkel. The sense of indisputable authority accompanies this assertion. Since by 1801, Friedemann (b. 1710, d. 1784) had been dead for seventeen years, this statement can have originated only as a result of the information fed to Hoffmeister and Kühnel by Forkel himself. It is clear that Forkel continued to nourish this claim throughout the rest of his life, for Griepenkerl, as his student, absorbed the stance of his influential teacher and perpetuated it (47).

Note particularly “von ihm verbesserten Originalen”, improved originals by him. The situation is somewhat murky at the outset. The implication appears to be that these manuscripts were “improved” by Johann Sebastian. Was it Friedemann who informed that Johann Sebastian improved these manuscripts? Since Wilhelm Friedemann´s unreliability is well known, his word does not inspire unshakeable confidence.

The Hoffmeister and Kühnel announcement concerned a change of policy in their manner of manuscript selection. It was brought about as result of Forkel´s complaints in his letters to these publishers, couched in very strong terms, accusing them of carelessness in accepting Bach manuscripts for publication from unqualified persons. Forkel emphatically asserted the superiority of the manuscripts that he had acquired (48). However, we now know that Forkel was mistaken in his chronology of, for instance, the Inventions and the E minor Prelude of the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book One. This error arose as a result of Forkel´s accrediting the manuscripts of the Inventions, which he possessed, to the later date when they were, in fact, the product of an earlier version. True to the unfounded belief that later represents better, Forkel assumes his manuscripts represent an improved version.

Guided by Forkel´s conviction, Hoffmeister and Kühnel advertised the announcement above. The 1819 title-page statement repeats and swells the claim to include J.S. Bach himself and Forkel´s students. From 1802 to 1966 this blurb, declaring the direct tradition from J.S. Bach, still carries sufficient influence to be quoted with no comment as to its origin and validity (49). Forkel received the manuscript from Wilhelm Friedemann, according to his own report (50), but only the manuscript in Forkel´s hand, Mus. Ms. 212, was left in Forkel´s estate. Presumably Forkel´s manuscript is an identical copy of that which he received from Wilhelm Friedemann, given Forkel´s devout attention to his manuscripts. Yet it can never be certain that the copy is identical to that received from Wilhelm Friedemann, for human error in copying is present in all eras. Even if P212 were an exact copy of the vanished manuscript that Forkel received from Wilhelm Friedemann, the faithfulness of Wilhelm Friedemann´s manuscript to Johann Sebastian´s original cannot be established. Neither do we know whether the manuscript given by Wilhelm Friedemann to Forkel was an autograph or a copy, nor is the hand of that vanished manuscript known. Considering the unreliable character of Friedemann and the poverty of his later years, one must view with some questioning, albeit charitably and with some hesitation, the quality of Friedemann´s paid contributions to Forkel´s collection of Sebastian´s manuscripts. We do know that P212 is in Forkel´s hand, not in the hand of Wilhelm Friedemann, and that the Hoffmeister and Kühnel publication was based on P212. Therefore, the 1819 title-page statement, connecting this publication directly with Johann Sebastian, even as applied solely to the note-text alone, aside from the performance indications, precludes unconditional acceptance and must remain in question. Additionally, the textual alterations in Gr1819 from the 1802 printing belie the accuracy of the lineage claim.

Allowing for a measure of fairly accurate transfer of oral tradition and aural retention of traditional practices in performances, say, of Forkel´s students, even the most flexible reckoning cannot reconcile the stylistic changes in concepts of form, structure and performance practice that occurred between the period of composition of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, before December 1730 and 1819, almost one hundred years later! Each personality mentioned in the title-page statement inevitably brought a conception of performance to bear on Bach´s music, based on his own aesthetic history and musical identity, and the fact is inescapable that the near-century span moved, kaleidoscopically, through Empfindsamkeit Stil, Style galant, pre-Classicism, Classicism and Romanticism. The view, therefore, that Griepenkerl´s edition is a reproduction in direct line with Sebastian´s note-text and stylistic concepts and performance practices must be abandoned. It must be fully, and finally, acknowledged that the title-page claim to direct lineage is unrealistic, founded in wishful thinking rather than in historical reality.

With respect to Forkel, when one considers the fact that he was born as late as 1749, and reared in the late eighteenth century in a music world whose idiom had become alien to Sebastian´s roots and development, it becomes clear that one cannot attribute to Forkel a direct, undiluted knowledge of the detailed aspects of performance practice and a musical sensibility that would have identified with the musical world of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries that formed Johann Sebastian, despite Sebastian´s awareness in later life of burgeoning departures from his idioms. On the other hand, although Forkel matured in the period of the swelling romantic current, in the era of its most fecund growth, 1749-1818, he was essentially a conservative, preferring to cling to his past rather than to dwell in his own contemporary world of figures such as Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Weber. However, conservatism is not synonymous with solitary confinement; conservative as he was, Forkel could not preserve his taste in a freeze box. Nurturing the public recognition of Bach´s genius formed his life´s passion and supported his personal psychological and public professional identification. Yet despite his attachment to the past, Forkel came of age in a period when the established forms, structures and aesthetic outlook were the product, and had the stamp, of Romanticism. Inevitably, Griepenkerl carried this outlook a step further.

I. G. “Für das Pianoforte”: “…pianoforte playing was chiefly had in view…”(51)

The title page of Gr 1819 carries a sub-heading “für das Pianoforte” directly below the title, Chromatische Fantasie. This instrumental designation in the first performance edition of the Chromatische Fantasia und Fugue has been neglected for nearly two hundred years; as a result, its significance has been shelved. Major attention is universally focused on the lineage statement, quoted repeatedly in the Peters ongoing editions of this work. However, posterity seems to have turned a blind eye to the instrumental designation of “Pianoforte” which is neither mentioned by scholars/editors nor treated to discussion. Yet the name of this instrument is printed on the title page with equal pride of place with the lineage statement; therefore, this instrumental allocation merits equal attention. Since “für das Pianoforte” is followed by the lineage claim, it signifies that Johann Sebastian, Wilhelm Friedemann, Forkel and his students assigned the Chromatische Fantasia und Fugue to the “Pianoforte”.

Twenty-five years after the 1819 publication, on page II of his Bemerkungen für Johann Sebastian Bachs Kompositionen für die Orgel, Griepenkerl writes:

″The second means of perfect clearness⎯namely the Bach touch⎯must certainly be well known, it having been described at various times and with increasing copiousness⎯the first in C.P.E. Bach´s Versuch über die wahre Art, das Clavier zu spielen, Part I, p. 104; then in 1802, in Forkel´s Life of J.S. Bach (English edition), p. 21; and lastly, in 1819, in my preface to the edition of the Chromatische Fantasia und Fugue with the marks relative to the style of performance. It is true that, in the passages here alluded to, pianoforte playing was chiefly had in view…″ [Rosalyn Tureck´s emphasis]

Griepenkerl thus states in clear, specific terms that “… in 1819…with the marks relative to the style of performance…pianoforte playing was chiefly had in view.”

His Bemerkungen in the 1819 edition deal with keyboard technique and touch bound to the clavichord. Accordingly, the performance indications in the music score have been identified, particularly in the mid-to-late twentieth century, with the clavichord. Yet the title-page designation is, unconditionally, the “Pianoforte”. Therefore, on the face of it, in acknowledging the “Pianoforte” designation on the title page, the clavichord focus in these Bemerkungen presents a dilemma. However, he substantiates the title-page instrumental designation by writing: “The change from it [the clavier, i.e. clavichord] to the Forte-Piano presents no difficulties since the touch remains the same…” (53)

The notion of the clavichord as a primer and practice instrument was not unique to Griepenkerl or the eighteenth century. This usage was traditional, harking back at least to the sixteenth century. Edward M. Ripin´s informed and sensitive article on the clavichord places this instrument most successfully in its rightful historical context as well as in its relationship to the composing and performing ethos of its times. “For most of its long history, the clavichord was primarily valued as an instrument on which to learn, to practice and occasionally to compose” (54)

Griepenkerl´s instruction for transference from clavichord to forte-piano confirms the role of the clavichord as described by Ripin. Griepenkerl´s easy sense of transference from clavichord to forte-piano is by no means peculiar to him. The clavichord continued to be regarded as a practice instrument from which the performer transferred to other instruments. Despite its emergence as a solo instrument much admired by C.P.E. Bach and his followers and enlarged in size and volume in attempts to achieve the cherished goal of effective public performance, it never did fulfill the hopes for effective and widespread public performance.

Forkel practices the interchangeability of terms for the generic piano in his Bach biography. Likewise, Griepenkerl allows “Pianoforte” on the title page and cites “Forte-piano” on his Notes. Griepenkerl expresses a reluctance to recognize the skill of pianists when he refers to the “carelessness” allowed on the piano, and to pianists as “mere Forte-Piano players” (“blossen Forte-Piano Spieler”) (55). In actual fact, touch on the pianoforte also requires great care and expertise in the application of weight and sensitivity of touch. But the use of weight and the technique of touch applications on the clavichord and piano differ, owing to the difference between actions of the clavichord and the piano. It would be difficult to apply the terms “carelessness” or “mere Forte-Piano players” to the pianism of, to cite one instance, the celebrated pianist and composer Carl Maria von Weber, Griepenkerl´s contemporary. Weber´s piano music was far advanced in a true pianistic idiom and technique, requiring expert control in touch, speed, and tonal range. One wonders, moreover, if Griepenkerl knew the wide-ranging demands of Beethoven´s Piano Sonatas, all of which, from Op. 1 through 106, had been composed by 1819.

Nowhere in Griepenkerl´s Bemerkungen does he name, or refer to, the harpsichord. The following careful description of touch for the production of tonal dynamics cancels out any wishful thought that the harpsichord may have been included in Griepenkerl´s claims of direct lineage from Johann Sebastian:

“After all the exercises described above have been completed… one may begin to increase and decrease the weight by using either more or less pressure… with gradual crescendos or diminuendos for every successive tone in order to master forte and piano, the ebb and flow of dynamics without any further exertion, and especially the forte without striking a blow with the fingers…” (56)

This is not a description of harpsichord technique nor is it remotely relatable to the touch and style of production of volume changes on the harpsichord, owing to the action of the plectra. “Gradual crescendos or diminuendos” and the “ebb and flow of dynamics” are instrumentally and stylistically typical of tonal treatment and control of dynamics on both the clavichord and the piano.

The unconditioned allocation on the title page of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue to the pianoforte attests to the fact that performance assignment to the clavichord would have been inappropriate at the end of the second decade of the nineteenth century, reluctant as Griepenkerl is to admit the Pianoforte as the reigning instrument. The performance indications in Griepenkerl´s music score are, without doubt, intrinsic to the tonal and technical characteristics of the piano. So perfectly do they suit the capabilities of the generic piano and, equally important, the romantic-virtuoso mannerisms of the second decade of the nineteenth century that these indications were copied per se by subsequent editors of performance editions of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue throughout the nineteenth century and well into the mid-twentieth century. The great body of the nineteenth- and twentieth-century editions that follow Gr 1819, or its subsequent branches support this assertion, as their source for the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue. For instance, the long-respected 1880 Steingräber edition by Hans Bischoff is an incontestable example of literal acceptance of Griepenkerl´s dynamic indications. The conclusion cannot be avoided that in 1819, “Für das Pianoforte” is a deliberate and clearly intended instrumental allocation for the performance of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue.

II. Comparative Study of Note-text and Orthography in P212, P1803, Hoffmeister and Kühnel, Griepenkerl 1819

II.A. Fantasia

II.A.1. Note-Text and Orthography – Alterations and Additions

The fourth printing by Peters of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in 1819 departs in nature and content, as has been noted, from the manuscript sources and the first three printings. Alterations and additions to the note-text and the contribution of performance indications transform not only the style of the presentation of a musical composition in print but also its meaning for the performer, teacher and scholar. Equal and perhaps even more significant are the consequences relative to the stylistic projection of such a presentation, particularly when supported by so impressive a foundation as that claimed on the title page of Gr1819 and confirmed by Griepenkerl in his Bemerkungen. Moreover, it will now be shown here that Griepenkerl does not adhere to Forkel´s manuscript, and that Spitta is mistaken when he asserts in too general a statement that “Griepenkerl follows Forkel´s manuscript” (“Griepenkerl folgte der Handschrift Forkels.”)[9].

The note-text of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue continued to be a subject to alterations and emendations through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, that is, both before and after Ernst Naumann, in the Bach-Gesellschaft edition of 1890, returned the text to that based on one of the strongest manuscripts, P421 (57).

Who was responsible for the initial alterations in the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue and on what grounds were these alterations made? This question is not addressed to the textual variants to be found in secondary sources of copyists, where the cause for variants is ambiguous. Slips of the pen, forgotten accidentals, or leftover strands of the musica ficta tradition[10] are as accountable for variants as any consciously altered text. The question here is concerned with unambiguous, consciously wrought, textual alterations imposed upon a clearly named manuscript source.

The above question must be asked on two grounds:

1. Is there a single source that has formed the basis and justification for the retention and enlargement of alterations by editors throughout the last two centuries?
2. If so, who represents this single source?

These questions must be asked in order to understand the shift away, in publication, from the initial untampered reproduction of a reputable original source. The latter is represented by the first three printings of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue based on Forkel´s manuscript P212. The shift from this source proved to be extraordinary in its far-ranging distortions, in their longevity, and their extended acceptance by posterity. Much as the music of Sebastian and of other composers suffered from the assumed license of editors throughout the nineteenth century, Bach´s Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue received a maximal degree of transmogrification. These alterations were not made frivolously by unqualified editors; they appear in a pageant of successive editions by respected scholars and performer-scholars.

This section traces the evolution of the note-text of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue that originated in a confirmed scribal text, P212, in the hand of Forkel (58), through the printer´s model P1083, to the first printing by Hoffmeister and Kühnel, PN74, which Forkel supervised, to Peters´1819 publication, PN74/1512, edited by Forkel´s distinguished disciple, F.W. Griepenkerl. Griepenkerl became Forkel´s most ardent votary. He was the first to assume, in his presentation of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue, the role of expositor and overall instructor to performers. He was also the first to make deliberate changes in the note-text and to introduce copious performance indications (59).

The claim of direct descent from the godhead, and consequently, the semblance of authenticity, arises from subjective premises, unsubstantiated by a primary source or even by Forkel´s manuscript. The following comparative studies in the note-text of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue confirm that Griepenkerl 1819 did not work from Forkel´s Mus. Ms. P212 but rather from the Hoffmeister and Kühnel printing, PN74. It will also be seen that although the printer´s model for H&K, P1803, is based on Forkel´s P212, and shows that the initial intention is to duplicate P212, it is altered to accommodate the move to modernizing orthography. In some cases, the alteration in orthography produces ambivalence in the note-text and then leads to a change of note-text in PN74. There are, then, significant note-text changes in H&K that are not simply modernized orthographic changes; they are critical textual changes. That these alterations were initiated and/or approved by Forkel would seem to be inevitable deductions, since he was very closely associated with H&K at this time and responsible for the publication by them of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue. It is inconceivable that, given his personal sense of responsibility as a sponsor of Bach and his music, having succeeded in his enthusiastic sponsorship of this publication and having contributed his manuscript for this purpose, that he would not check the stages of production for the publication. Where Griepenkerl does not introduce his own alterations, he follows H&K´s note-text rather than that of Mus. Ms. P212. This would support attributing the departures from P212 in H&K to Forkel´s change of mind from his own manuscript P212. Griepenkerl surely would have had access to Forkel for consultation until the latter´s death in 1818. Had he or Forkel or both rejected the alterations in PN74 and had they wished to return to the original note-text in P212, this manuscript was extant and accessible for reference.

II.A.2. Key Signature

The Fantasia, in the Dorian mode, receives no key signature in the most reliable manuscripts. The absence of a key signature in the Fantasia represents the well-known tradition of the chromatic key of D, workable within the tuning system of mean temperament[11]. It serves in varied harmonic and chromatic situations because the tuning of the notes within the ascending and descending fifths of the scale remains constant, whereas variability in other keys limited modulation and the use of chromaticism, particularly in polyphonic structures.

The absence of signature in manuscripts of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue suggests they are comparatively early copies, direct branches of these, or copies. As the major and minor modes and equal temperament became firmly entrenched, the entry of the key signature became the universal notational convention.

Forkel´s manuscript adheres to the old style, leaving a key signature blank in the Fantasia and including it solely on the first staff of the Fugue. P1083 relates to Forkel´s style by placing the key signature on the first staff of each page only in both the Fantasia and the Fugue. The inclusion of the key signature on the first staff represents an implicit instruction to apply the flat throughout. The H&K publication, based on this model, prints the key signature explicitly in both movements on every staff. Clearly, by 1802, the major and minor scales required a standard key signature format. Gr 1819 follows suit and, henceforth, no deviations from this format occur. The modern key signature of d minor appears consistently in succeeding editions, added in the urtext editions of BG and NBA as well.

II.A.3. Accidentals

Forkel´s manuscript is often ambiguous regarding accidentals, owing to the inconsistency of his entries and omissions of accidentals. For example, Forkel is explicit in his note-text directions in mm. 1-2, cancelling the flat on the first b1 with a natural sign on this note in both measures in each of their respective appearances, and returning the flat to it on its next appearance. In m. 1, a reentry of b1 in the third beat receives no symbol, its flat being implicit following the flatted b1 in beat two. In m. 5, a flat symbol is added twice to b1 in each of its appearances within the measure on the successive beats of three and four; in m. 6, the b1 on the first beat receives no accidental; the next one, in the third beat, does, and the following one in the fourth beat does not receive it.

P1083: m. 4 shows the first sign of departure from the orthography of P212. Initially the flat symbols for both b1 on the third and fourth beats are entered as in P212; then they are erased. The added flat symbols in P212 are no longer considered necessary. H&K follows the erasures and omits the original flat symbols. Gr 1819 duplicates H&K here. These erasures do not cause a change in note-text; they clearly express the leap into the modern orthographic style. In m. 5, P1083, continuing its departure from the added symbols on b1 in P212, scratches out the flat symbols for this note in the third and fourth beats entered initially according to P212. The corrected orthography of P1083 is established in H&K and Gr 1819. In m. 6, P1083 follows P212 in omitting the flat symbol on the first b1 on the first beat, enters the flat symbol on this note on the third beat, as in P212, and then scratches that out. The b1 on the fourth beat remains without a flat symbol as in P212. H&K and Gr 1819 print according to the scratch-out and omissions of P1083.

M. 7 provides a particularly graphic statement on the evolution of orthography from P212, PN74 and Pn1512. P1083 again initially enters a flat symbol on b1 in the first beat, and repeats in the fourth beat the flat symbol on e1 and the sharp symbol on f1 that had been entered for these notes in beat three⎯precisely as these are entered in P212. Then the flat symbol on b1 in the first beat is scratched out as are the repeated flat and sharp in the fourth beat. PN74 and P1512 show no ambivalence and proceed according to P1083. The orthographic treatment of these opening measures demonstrates the original intention to follow Forkel´s manuscript in every detail, and the alteration of this course for publication, which results in a transformation of note-text from P212.

A few additional examples will serve to illuminate the evolution of the note-text in P1083, and the relationship of H&K and Gr 1819 to the original text of Forkel and to the recasting of note-text, which P1083 initiated.

P212 shows a flat symbol for the first B1 in the bass at the third beat, none on the second b within that beat, but enters the flat for the return of B1 in the fourth beat. P1083 enters no accidental for the b1 on the third beat. The second B1 in the third beat receives a flat symbol squeezed into the normal space between the notes, apparently not planned originally for inclusion, as it does not appear here in P212. H&K follow P212 so literally that a natural sign is placed before this first B1 in the third beat where P1083 had not entered a flat symbol, though P212 did. This natural sign in H&K necessitates the addition of a flat symbol for the second B within the third beat, as inserted in P1083. Gr 1819 follows H&K. It is well to remember that the plates for Gr 1819 are here numbered 1512; thus, this Peters printing is not a reprinting of PN74. The duplications or changes in PN1512 are conscious choices on the part of Griepenkerl. Had he relied on the Forkel manuscript, the note-text would have differed from PN74. Is this “what Forkel played and taught”? Did either Forkel or Griepenkerl fully realize the significance of the revisions in note-text from P212? Surely Griepenkerl, at least, was aware that he had initiated revisions.

The original orthographic departures in P1083 produced confusion as well as ambiguity. A variant study in the most reliable manuscripts of this measure shows unanimity; all Mus. Mss. P651, P421, P803, P320, and AmB548, as well as P212, place a flat symbol before the first B1 in the third beat. In fact, all three B1 receive a flat symbol in these sources. This B1 of P1083, minus a symbol, should have been read as an implicitly flatted B1. H&K, having taken the unmarked note a stage further, adding a distinct natural symbol, created an erroneous tradition that was accepted by later editors and that persisted into the twentieth century.

Heretofore, in the first eight measures, the notational changes have arisen from changes in orthographic style. M. 9 contains the first explicit alteration of note-text from the B1 symbol in P212 to the omission of a symbol in P1083, established in the first printing, to the substitution of the natural symbol in H&K, which is followed in 1819 by Griepenkerl. This is a clear example of the reliance of H&K on P1083 and Gr 1819 on PN74 rather than on Forkel´s P212.

The harmonic progression, as a result of the alteration from B1-flat to B1 natural, produces, instead of the emphasis on the diminished chord with the repetition of B1-flat three times within the same beat, a chromatic progression from the minor triad to the diminished triad/seventh. Which is one to choose? P212 and all the listed reliable sources clearly advocate the continuance of the diminished chord as outlining the harmonic framework. The orthography of P1083 is transmuted in H&K to the chromatic progression as a fait accompli. Gr 1819 establishes it definitively and a large portion of posterity follows suit. His unquestioning followers (an influential succession of editors) accordingly pass it on to teachers and performers throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

It is of course interesting to trace the progression of orthographic styles from manuscript copies to first printings and later publications and to note the variants that ensue. However, the alterations pertain not only to note-text as dictated by the omission and addition of accidentals proves to be crucial, for the alterations cause shifts in structural concepts. The harmonic design and organization of harmonic relationships in Western music of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries represent the fundamental concept of a composer´s work and, further, they mirror the shifting harmonic idioms of progressively changing musical cultures. Therefore, the change of B1-flat to b1 natural may confuse, negate, or misrepresent the larger organizational procedure of a composition. At its worst, note-text alteration can shift a composition into an era to which it does not belong.

Measure 14
Another interesting evolution in note-text occurs in m. 14 at beats three and four. P212 enters no symbol for b1 in the third beat, but enters a natural sign for B1, the last note in the measure. P1083 inserts an initially unplanned natural sign for b1 in the third beat. No space had been allocated for this symbol here. The decision to make this insertion probably was based on the fact that the last note of the passage was an explicitly marked B1 natural. In P1083, the natural symbol in beat four is entered normally with adequate space. The entry in P1083 for beats three and four originally duplicated that of P212. H&K follows P1083 in its second thoughts about b1, allowing extra space for an accidental o precede this b1 in the third beat, and then leaves that space blank! H&K allows extra space also for an accidental to precede the last B1, which had received a natural sign in both P212 and P1083, and that is also left blank! Since the key signature is present on every stave in H&K, the unmarked b1 and B1 signify a flatted treatment. Gr 1819 repairs the situation by adjusting the spacing and by adding flat symbols for b1 in the third beat, and b1 in the fourth beat. Result: the b natural of the fourth beat, in P212, here becomes B1-flat. Both b1 and B1 are now neatly flatted, and the structural result of these alterations produces a passage in the harmonic minor mode. The B1 natural, fourth beat, of P212, is cancelled, and any implication of the melodic minor indicated by the accidental in P212, and confirmed by P1083 in adding the natural symbol to b1 in the third beat, is destroyed for posterity by Gr 1819, via H&K, by adding the flat symbol to both b1 and B1 in these two successive beats. Structurally, this alteration contributes an unequivocal harmonic mode to the passage that affects the harmonic relationships to its neighboring measures and constitutes a critical alteration in the larger conceptual harmonic design as well.

Measure 22
P212 enters a flat symbol for B1 in the second beat and again for the same note on the third beat, and enters no accidental for the B2 in the passage in the fourth beat. Again, the scribe of the printer´s model initially follows Forkel precisely, but then the accidentals are effaced. The spaces for the accidental on B1, in the second and third beats, remain. Conforming to P212, the scribe does not add an accidental on the B2 of the fourth beat, and here there is no problem of erasure or irregular spacing. On middle C of the first beat and the first C1 in the fourth beat a sharp sign is clearly entered in P212. Both sharp symbols are initially entered in P1083, but his accidental is scratched away in the fourth beat. Clearly, the original intention was a literal duplicate copy of Forkel´s manuscript.

The omission of a symbol for B1, m. 22, second beat, P1083, leads to an alteration of note-text in H&K where a natural sign is inserted and this is reproduced by Gr 1819. B1 on the third beat has the flat sign returned to it in H&K. Note the scratch-outs for B1 on the second and third beats. The sharp symbol on the first C1 in the fourth beat of m. 22 that Forkel enters is set down in P1083 and then defaced; it is returned in the publications of H&K and Gr 1819. The last B in the measure, receiving no accidental in P212 and P1083, receives the natural sign in H&K. Therefore the effacing of the accidentals from B1 in the second and third beats in P1083 leads to the change from B-flat in the second beat distinctly entered in P212 to the equally distinctly and deliberately altered natural sign in H&K, with Gr 1819 following this reading. The harmonic frame is thereby critically altered from a passage in the minor harmonic to the minor melodic mode.

Measure 23
Here again, the scribe of P1083 initially follows Forkel´s manuscript to the letter. In so doing, the space for the flat symbol for B1 and the sharp on C1 in beat one is not provided for, for these entries do not exist in P212. We can see that spacing is provided, however, for an accidental for C1 in beats two and three as well as the flat for B1, the last note of beat three. Entries of the sharp sign for the C1 in beats two and three were made initially. These omissions and entries are precisely what Forkel has in his manuscript. The scribe now makes changes. Although P212 shows no accidentals in beat one, a flat and sharp symbol, respectively, are squeezed in between B2 and C1 in beat one, and the sharp signs, inserted in beats two and three for C1, are effaced. In P212, C1 receives an individual sharp sign in its two entries n beats two and three, whereas no sharp is entered for C1 in beat one. Whereas P1083 enters the flat symbol for the first B1 in beat one, H&K inserts a natural sign. The flat symbol is not present in P212 on B for the three times it appears, in beats one, two and three. The flat sign for B2, in the second beat, squeezed in as afterthought in P1083, is not repeated for the following two entries of B2 here. The original sharp signs for the two C1s in beats two and three, deleted in P1083, are returned in H&K, just as they appear in P212. In H&K a natural symbol is substituted for the flat symbol in P1083, at B2 in beat one. Gr 1819 accepts the natural sign for B2 in beat one, as added in H&K, as well as the rest of the note-text: the added sharp symbol to the first C1 in beat one, and no accidental signs until the last B1 in the third beat. The pertinent question here is: on whose advice was the flat on B2, beat one, in P1083 altered to B natural in H&K? Although the answer is never to be known, the clear fact is that B2 b in P1083 becomes B2 natural in H&K and Gr 1819, and with this change the structural mode is altered from augmented second to a whole tone interval, and from harmonic minor mode to harmonic melodic mode. Thus, these instances of altered note-text and, in their wake, altered harmonic structuring, demonstrate the evolution of the note-text. In some cases the result of changes in orthographic style, in others the result of conscious choice according to the taste of the editor(s).

The evolution of the note-text from P212 through P1083, H&K and Gr 1819 led to an established note-text based on Gr 1819 in later editions. Because of Griepenkerl´s longevity as chief editor of successive Peters editions of Sebastian´s keyboard works and because of his authority in the field, his was the prime seminal source for note-text and performance indications for all those who did not trouble, or were not equipped, to consult the reliable manuscript sources. The anachronism created by way of the altered harmonic constructs and implications, and as result of Griepenkerl´s performance indications, went deep into the sensibilities of both musicians and scholars, making for a conceptual and performance style that was completely alien to that of J.S. Bach. From these, the twentieth century had a long way to travel, and the arduous task to uncover authenticity of note-text, stylistic concepts and performance. We are still not truly returned from experiencing the throes of reaction resulting from the pervasive strength of Griepenkerl´s errors and assumptions. He was well intentioned and better equipped than others in many ways to produce and edition with some links to original tradition. But more unwittingly than otherwise, and subject to his own time, he was a kind of Pied Piper who led many generations into the wrong road.

II.A.4. “The Error”. Measures 49-58

“The Error” applies to the entire Recitative section of the Fantasia, mm. 49-58. Griepenkerl, in his Bemerkungen, explains with great care and in the clearest possible terms a performance treatment indicated by a notation device that he has entered into the note-text of the Recitative:

Die erste Note eines jeden dieser recitativischen Sätze ist hier verkürzt dargestellt, nicht um dadurch zum punktirten und gezerrten Vortrage zu verführen, sondern einzig um anzudeuten, dass jedere Satz im Auftakte anfängt, und das also die zweite Note den Accent haben muss.

“The first note of each of these recitative phrases is shown here as shortened, not to lead one astray to a dotted or affected style of performance, but solely to distinguish clearly that each phrase begins on the upbeat and also that the second note must have the accent” [Rosalyn Tureck´s emphases] (60)

s it happened with the orthographic changes discussed above, many distinguished performing musicians, teachers, scholars, and major publishers reprinted, over a period of a hundred and thirty-three years, the “shortened” note, incorporating it as an integral part of the time values in the note-text. It was retained in the entire central recitative section without any comment, or placed above the staff as a legitimate variant of the note-text (61). It is painfully obvious that these editors (including the renowned Bach performer Edwin Fischer) had not read Griepenkerl´s verbal essay. Had they done so, this fallacious rendering would never have occurred nor have been handed down through two centuries until as late as 1951, when Kodály´s publication.

Since measured music was first established in Western culture, the downbeat has always been perceived as being the strong beat in relation to the upbeat. Accordingly, tonal stress is traditionally applied to the downbeat. Needless to say, the first note of a phrase does not necessarily fall on a downbeat. The first note of the phrase here is on the upbeat; accordingly, the phrase begins on an upbeat. The second note of the phrase falls on the downbeat. This rhythmic treatment is given to every phrase in the recitative section.

For purposes of performance, one of the chief devices for scanning metric relationships in music is in patterns of strong/weak. The downbeats structure the metric pattern of a measure; they are the mini-pillars upholding the other elements⎯harmonic, melodic, and all manner of structuring and meanderings within the two bar lines that mark off a musical measure. One of the chief elements for achieving articulation in performance of metric pattern is volume of sound; one of the chief devices for structuring sound volume is a skilled balancing of volume relationships of loud/soft. The treatment of volume relationships is by no means the sole performance device for this purpose. Varieties of long/short via touch, for instance, on a keyboard instrument, are another. Appropriately related volume levels of loud/soft have been a standard requirement for several centuries for indicating metric pattern, particularly in measured music. It is indispensable on instruments that are capable of tonal control on the part of the fingers. As is well enough known, the harpsichord has a minimal capacity for effecting varying degrees of loud and soft directly through finger control. Such control is limited to highly skilled harpsichordists and sensitive harpsichords. The clavichord and the fortepiano/pianoforte are totally dependent on direct finger control for volume relationships.

It is fundamental to performance that the metric patterns of upbeat/downbeat be clearly perceived by the player, and that the tonal relationship that expresses each metric relationship be articulated accordingly with no ambiguity as to the rhythmic placement of strong/weak. When the first note of a phrase begins on an upbeat, the performer⎯if insensitive, unskilled in tonal control or unobservant, or both⎯is likely to give stress to the upbeat simply because it is the first note of the phrase. The second note of the phrase on the downbeat will then receive less volume and will appear as the weaker unit. This upsets the metric as well as the lyric flow of the phrase and can also adversely affect the harmonic relationships.

The tendency to emphasize the first note of a phrase unthinkingly no matter where it falls in a measure is universal, just as prevalent today as it apparently was in Griepenkerl´s time. His emphasis on this point makes clear the fact that he had too often heard the wrong tonal emphasis impair the required metric and melodic flow of the line. It must have been so frequent an occurrence that Griepenkerl made a particular effort to call attention to the avoidance of this gaucherie.

Griepenkerl felt it so crucial to the performance of these extraordinarily expressive recitative phrases that he introduced a signal directly into the note-text itself that, he thought, along with his explanatory verbal notes in the Bemerkungen, would guarantee for the performer the appropriate perception and performance treatment of these phrases. The device he created---halving the original time value of a sixteenth to a thirty-second---was to signify a controlled lightening of volume on the first note of each phrase, a sixteenth on the upbeat in relation to the second note, a sixteenth on the downbeat, which was to receive more tone. Griepenkerl´s device was not meant to indicate a halving of the time value.

The practice of indicating a specific kind of expressiveness by altering the normal time value is not unique with Griepenkerl. C.P.E. Bach explains this practice. Referring to his modification of the usual tie symbol meant to sustain long notes to “white” notes, which conventionally indicate the specific time value of whole notes, he writes: “There is always a slight pause between statements in two- and three-voice cadenzas before a new voice enters. In the lessons, I have indicated these held endings with whole notes instead of the usual ties. The white notes serve no other purpose and are to be held until relieved by another note in the same voice.” (62) [Rosayn Tureck´s emphasis]

The keyboard player on clavichord and piano knows that tonal stresses are entirely dependent on the weight of the finger, wrist or arm, or both, and the style of pressing the key downward unique to each instrument. The very actions built into the clavichord and the pianoforte determine the nature and character of these instruments. The actions of these two instruments require that quantity of tone be controlled by the player. As every keyboard player knows, variety of volume quantities is not mechanically induced as a result of registration or changes of manual, as on the harpsichord or organ. The organ has virtually no capability to respond to sensitive human touch.

Griepenkerl´s tonal concern tallies with his orientation as a disciple of Forkel, who lived in an era when the clavichord was a favored instrument and the pianoforte was well on its way to assuming the center of the stage for keyboard performance. It tallies also with his unequivocal instrumental designation on the title page of his 1819 edition, “Für das Pianoforte.” There is no disagreement about the fact that the pianoforte is an instrument where tonal insensitivity to upbeat/downbeat relationships is particularly apparent, as it is also on the clavichord (63).

Could this device of shortening a time value be viewed as a recommendation for inégale treatment? Griepenkerl makes it explicitly clear that the device does not signify an uneven dotted or double-dotted function. In his Bemerkungen, he emphasizes the fact that his device is “not to lead astray to a dotted or affected style of performance”. Moreover, note Griepenkerl´s view that application of notes inégales is to be avoided equally with an “affected of performance.” Therefore, there is no ground for viewing the halved-value note as written-out realization of notes inégales. In any case, the practice of notes inégales was virtually obsolete by 1819. IF any residuum survived, Griepenkerl makes it unmistakably clear that his device does not indicate a “dotted” treatment.

Every one of the thirty-plus manuscripts supporting the research for the note-text entries considered here, including the three unedited German printings (1802, ca. 1806, ca. 1814/15) and the English Kollmann edition of 1806 (64), shows a sixteenth note consistently on the first note of the phrase, measure by measure through mm. 49-56, and on the fourth beat of m .58. On the face of it, Griepenkerl´s note-text is distinctly, uniquely different, for no explanation or alternative for this thirty-second time value is given in the pages of the music score itself.

If Griepenkerl´s Bemerkungen had been destroyed, leaving only the note-text, the numerous succeeding editors who copied his score literally, and who ignored manuscript sources and the early printings, would have had a valid excuse for accepting Griepenkerl´s note-text. However, even a limited survey of the chief extant manuscripts and of PN74 in any of the three printings previous to Gr 1819 would have revealed Griepenkerl´s notation as the sole departure from equal note values and, therefore, open to serious questioning. Since the title page of this edition proclaims its direct link with Johann Sebastian Bach via its impressive tabulation of lineage, the note-text and performance indications in the music score were assumed by later editions to be authentic; too often were these unquestioned and accepted.

It has not been uncharacteristic for musicians⎯composers as well as performers⎯to ignore, or to veer away from verbal commentary, even in our musicologically-oriented era. One instance in Griepenkerl´s time of lack of interest in words is a comment made by Beethoven in a letter to his publisher, Hoffmeister (65). He asserts, clearly enough, his remoteness from verbal usage, which he describes as “dry letters” of the alphabet:

“To Capellmeister Hoffmeister in Leipzig
Vienna, December 15, 1880
Dearest Brother,

I have often wished to answer your inquiries, but as a correspondent I am fearfully lazy, and so a long time passes before I write, instead of notes, dry letters [of the alphabet]; but at last I have forced myself to come up to the mark…”

Or course, Beethoven´s genius operated in his virtually limitless range of creative musical ideas rather than verbal expression. However, his evaluation of words, “dry letters”, is indicative of similar attitudes on the part of many practicing musicians. The examination of the procession of editions that appeared throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century shows that neglect of the word appears to characterize many musician/editors as well.

Measures 50/51
No study of P212 should omit a detailed consideration of the most problematic measure of the entire manuscript, m. 50. None of the other manuscripts that I have examined contains the version that appears unambiguously in P212 and its branches Ms2A, U2, P228. The external evidence is unequivocal; m. 50 in P212 is so clearly written as to admit no argument about its notational intent. It is therefore necessary to pursue another direction in an attempt to select the version most likely to suit the context of the music. Where scribal variants present ambiguity, structural analysis comes to the rescue in releasing the significance and illuminating the suitability of a note-text choice.

The printer´s model initially follows Forkel´s manuscript literally. Forkel has meticulously set down accidentals: 1) a flat symbol for e1 in the second beat, and 2) a natural sign for e1 in the third beat. He adds a natural sign to a1 in the fourth beat, although a1 in the second beat has not received any accidental. P1083 adds a natural sign to A2 in the bass chord on beat two, though this does not appear in P212; all else is as is written in P212. However, the natural sign accorded in P212 to a1 on the fourth beat originally entered, as just noted, is then scratched out in P1083. By adding a natural symbol to A2 on the second beat in the chord in the bass, the scribe of P1083 emphasizes the fact that A2 was to be A natural, since no accidental would have signified A natural anyway. However, the a1 in the chord on the upper stave in the same beat does not receive a natural sign. The a1 of beat four, initially entered as in P212, is scratched out, owing apparently, to the modern understanding that it retains the same identity as its predecessor. But no precedent for a1 flatted is present in m. 50 or in its preceding measure. Therefore, a1 minus an accidental is indubitably a natural. Forkel makes a point of adding the natural sign to a1 on the top stave in beat four, even though a1 does not receive an accidental in beat two, no doubt to ensure that it remains natural. P1083 pays similar attention to ensuring that A2 in the second beat be natural by adding the natural symbol. The scratch-out of the natural symbol for a1 in the fourth beat indicates that the added accidental is deemed unnecessary.

H&K follows P1083, adding a natural sign to the A1 in the bass chord of beat two, and omitting the natural sing for a1 in beat four. The note-text of Gr 1819 repeats that of H&K precisely, but the natural symbol in the bass chord is omitted; by 1819 an excess of accidentals was considered unnecessary.

In summary, we have P1083 adding a natural sign to the bass chord on A1, which P212 does not have, scratching out the natural sign on the upper stave in beat four, which P212 does have, H&K following P1083 precisely and Gr 1819 following H&K with the exception of the natural symbol in the bass. The result is that in these sources A natural is repeatedly emphasized with the addition of the accidental in either the upper or lower stave.

The primary significance of this unique variant lies in the harmonic implications present in the two chords on the second beats of mm. 50 and 51. As can be seen in P212 and its descendants (and all its later followers), the first phrase of the recitative section, an upbeat flourish in m. 49 to m. 50, settles in m. 50 on the second beat, on the diminished seventh of B-flat minor. In P651 and all other reliable manuscripts, this flourish settles on the dominant seventh of D-flat major, the relative major of B flat minor. The divergence of harmonic situation here is not entirely unrelated. Both versions deal with the related keys of D-flat major and B-flat minor, its minor relative. In this sense, these variants are not so alien to each other as appears at first. Nor is the difference between the use of the diminished and dominant sevenths far removed from a central principle of the harmonic treatment in the entire Fantasia, as may be assumed lacking careful structural analysis, for the play of dominant/diminished seventh is pervasive throughout the virtuosic figurations.

Further, in claiming a certain relatedness of treatment one must ask: how does the use of dominant or diminished relate to what precedes and follows m. 50? Ill. 9 shows that if variant a) is selected, the diminished seventh chord is repeated four times in succession on the second beat in mm. 50, 51, 52 and 53. If variant b) is employed, there is a play on the dominant/diminished; the dominant seventh of m. 50 is immediately followed by the diminished seventh in m. 51. The diminished seventh, repeated three times in mm. 51, 52 and 53, is followed by the dominant seventh, iterated four times in mm. 54, 55, 56 and 57. The diminished seventh returns successively in mm. 58, 59, 60 and 61, ending the recitative. This play of dominant/diminished is a constant motive in the Fantasia [12]:

The opening of this new section with recitative material is firmly grounded at the outset in a basic constant linear motive, made familiar by its continual related harmonic play from the very opening of the Fantasia, m. 1 (tonic) diminished seventh, m. 2 (tonic) dominant seventh.

In variant b), the dominant seventh in m. 50 and the diminished seventh in m. 51 announce the continued harmonic relatedness of dominant/diminished in this section, which contains a radically different change of pace and figurative design. The relationship of dominant/diminished is the sole connective tissue binding the previous sections to the recitative.

As Ill. 10 shows, the melodic element suffers also suffers from repetitive condition with the employment of variant a). Variant b) creates diversity and retains the principle of chromaticism by moving chromatically at the very opening of the section: from m. 50 to the chromatic steps. All the slurs following carry out the chromatic pattern⎯mm. 56, 58, and 59. The chromatic pattern of the slurs in the recitative section is finally resolved at the ending of this section, in m. 61, to the diatonic pattern. Here, for the first time since m. 50, there is a harmonic resolution in the form of a half cadence resolving into C sharp minor.

Summary
The chromatic patterning is consistent throughout the grand design of the Fantasia. It forms the scaffolding of the entire unfolding of greatly varied figurations, section by section. The recitative is rooted virtually measure by measure in the foundation of successive chromatic progressions. Variant b) introduces this element at the outset of the recitative, in mm. 50 and 51. Variant a) forces a lapse in chromaticism during four consecutive measures; the chromatic chordal ground of the recitative is not projected until well into the recitative, at mm. 55, five measures after its opening.

Ill. 11. Chromatic Treatment: Measures 50-63

This illustration shows the density of the chromatic ground that upholds the floridity and freedom of the recitative figurations and that, at the same time, contributes expressive color to this inner section of the Fantasia´s great design. This analysis demonstrates the structural power and pervasiveness of the Fantasia´s internal chromatic structuring. Based on the varied structural aspects that emerge from this analysis, the note-text given to posterity by Forkel in Mus. Ms. P212 must be rejected.

Griepenkerl 1819 follows the note-text of H&K here, which of course duplicates P212 via P1083. The recitative was further confounded by Griepenkerl when he altered the visual impression of the time values for this measure, from its entry at m. 50 through m. 56 and again on the fourth beat of m. 58.

II.A.6. Measures 61-62. The Accidentals. Linear Intervallic Structure. Harmonic Direction. Appoggiatura – Structural Functions, Intervallic Scale Structure. Summary.

Measures 61-62

P212, P1083, PN74 Gr 1819
M. 61, 4th beat, last sixteenth f1# f1x
M. 62, 3rd beat, last sixteenth d2 d2#

The most prominent and unmistakably deliberate alteration of note-text in Gr 1819 occurs on the fourth beat of m. 61, in the last triplet figure of the measure. Where P212, P1083 and PN74 agree on f1#, Griepenkerl alters the single sharp to a double sharp, f1x, a typical nineteenth-century usage both in harmonic connotation and notational style.

There is no confusion here relating to earlier orthographic practice, for the double sharp would, in any case, be an unlikely usage by Griepenkerl´s predecessors. PN74, as well as P212 and P1083, shows a clear entry of the single sharp symbol, #, preceding the last f1 in m. 61. Yet there is no ambiguity in Griepenkerl´s entry; it is a deliberate textual alteration. No explanation for this change is given by Griepenkerl in his Bemerkungen, as had been offered for other of his editing contributions⎯for instance, the alteration of time values in the recitative (See “The Error”), or his recommendation to abrogate Carl Philipp Emanuel´s instruction on how to treat Arpeggio, putting forward his own instruction as being a better way to treat the passage (66).

Likewise, Gr 1819 adds a sharp symbol to d2 in the third beat in m. 62. P212, P1083 and PN74 agree in adding # to d1 in the first triplet of beat one of the measure. No ambiguity appears in P1083 where instances of scratch-outs abound and squeezing inserts of accidentals originally unintended is not uncommon. Neither insert of accidental nor scratch-out appears on either d1 or d2 after the first sharp sign on d1 in beat one. Four scratch-outs are present in P1083 in this measure⎯for c1 on beat two and c2 occurring twice in beat three as well as for g2 in beat two; accidentals had been added and then, being deemed unnecessary, removed. However, in m. 61, the note-text in Griepenkerl´s immediate predecessor, H&K, PN74, is more precisely marked. There, a separate sharp symbol is entered for each of the three successive c2 in beats three and four. Even when repeated twice within the same beat, at beat four, c2 is treated in H&K PN74 to a separate sharp symbol each time, making for three sharp entries on the same note in the same measure and register within a time span of only two beats. P212 indicates # on the first c2 in beat three and does not repeat the # on either of the two repeated c2 in beat four, and P1083 does the same. Likewise, in m. 62, P212, P1083 and H&K PN74 do not repeat the # on the second d1 in beat two; Griepenkerl follows these sources here. They do not add # to d2 at beat three either. But here, Griepenkerl does. So accordingly, the omission in the sources of a sharp symbol at d2 in beat three, which appears in a different register for the first time one octave above the sharped d1 in beat one, appears to be indicative of a d2 natural. This is particularly suggestive of d2 natural since all add a sharp symbol to c2 in beat three, following the sharp symbol on c1 in beat one, to indicate that c2 is indeed sharped as well. Has a sharp symbol for d2, which is in the identical relationship to d1, as is c2 to c1, been accidentally omitted in P212, P1083 and H&K? P1083 shows no initial entry, scratch-out or planned space for an accidental before d2. Therefore, this unmarked d2 that follows immediately after the measure that so precisely contains three sharped c2 in the same register implies this reading of the note-text here. The entry of accidentals on the same note that appears in a higher register is prevalent throughout these sources. Accordingly d2, in not receiving an accidental, would represent D2 natural. Structurally, this is entirely consonant here with the modulatory diatonic progress moving from the tonic c# minor, to and through the A major dominant triad of the relative major of c# minor, E, from beat three of m. 61 to beat four of m. 62. Not only is the unmarked d2 natural of importance in relation to the source note-texts; its linear and harmonic relationships within this passage are particularly significant. Of peripheral interest is the implied preference of the three sources of Gr 1819 for the whole tone and the latter´s specifically marked preference for the half-tone interval.

In m. 61, the structural result in the move from sharp to double sharp in Gr 1819 is crucial. None of the listed reliable manuscripts of their later branches gives Griepenkerl´s version of F1x. On the contrary, without exception, these manuscripts are unambiguous with the clear entry of a single sharp sign before F1 in m. 61 (67). Moreover, it will be seen that the harmonic intervallic sense expressed by the addition of the sharp in Gr 1819 on d2 in m. 62 is related to the entry in Gr 1819 of the double sharp symbol in m. 61. The alteration in this bar from f# to fx affects much more than a single note. It destroys the key center of the passage, and alters the intervallic relationships that are imbedded in the complete passage in regular and inverted motion spanning the one-and-a-half measures of 61-62.

Measure 62 presents problems of a more ambiguous nature as well. The erasures in the printer´s model that, more likely than not, were the result of Forkel´s supervision, speak eloquently for the original textual intention. As can be seen by the white spaces preceding the individual notes in beats two and three of m. 62, P1083 had originally included every sharp sign contained in P212 for mm. 61-62; subsequently, those accidentals following the first beat in m. 62 were considered redundant and erased accordingly. Note that in m. 62 Forkel omitted (or perhaps forgot to add) the sharp symbol for B1 in the second triplet of beat one. P1083 adds # to this B1 and H&K and Gr1819 follow suit.

The spaces resulting from the erasures in P1083 are visible and unmistakable. The scratch-outs for c1and g1 signify that the accidental was to be applied to any repetition of the same pitch class in the same register within the measure. The two initial entries of the sharp sign for the repeated c2 in beat three can also hardly escape notice by their very erasure. Here is a case where the # in the lower pitch class applies to that of an octave above. But d2 in beat three is left altogether unmarked by entry or scratch-out, as is b2, as in P212. In m. 61 of P212, c2 on the third beat receives an accidental and, although this c2 is repeated twice again, the accidental is not repeated. P1083 does the same. H&K adds the sharp accidental to each of the three c2; Gr 1819 adds it to the second c2, but leaves the third c2 blank. In m. 62, P212 carefully repeats the entry of the sharp on each c1 of beats one and two, and each c2 of beat three, but does not apply repetitions of accidentals to other pitches, such as the second entry of d1 of beat two or d2 of beat three. P1083 effaces four initially entered accidentals in m. 62 except, unexplainably, for the first two c1 in the first beat and the two f2 in the fourth beat; these repetitions of the accidental on the same note are allowed to remain. H&K, PN74, in m. 62, follow P1083 only partially. In beats one and two no accidentals are entered for the repeated notes within the same register in beat two. But for c2 in this measure, H&K adds the sharp. Here is a distinct signal to sharping of c2, in a different pitch class from c1. No sharp sign is given, however, to the first d2 of the measure within the same third beat. The case of c2 and d2 is parallel with d1 and c1 in beat one, c2 having received the #; yet d2 is left bare.

Worthy of note is the fact that in H&K, m. 62, the added sharp symbol on c2, which was deleted in P1083, is rather squeezed into a space matching these spaces, where accidentals are not meant to accommodate any additional symbols. In comparing the wide spacing between notes where accidentals were planned in advance, it becomes evident that this accidental was inserted after the printed spacing had been set according to the deletion of the # in P1083. The scena: P1083, having initially indicated # for the second c1 in beat two, deletes it. A space is left. H&K follows the omission admitting only the normal close spacing for the notes. The regularly spaced close proximity of the notes on the staff at c2 on beat three in m. 62 and the narrowly inserted # for c2 here strongly suggest a change of mind to include the sharped identity of c2. Accordingly, H&K considers it necessary to reassert that this first c2 is to be sharped; then the second c2 in the following triplet requires no symbol. The accidental on the c2 is particularly significant in light of the fact that d2, in the third beat, receives no accidental. Since H&K is so meticulous in adding # to the first c2 to insure its being sharped and does not add the sharp to d2, the lack of an accidental here identifies d2 as d2 natural. P212 had also added # twice to the closely repeated c2 in beat three, left d2 in beat three unmarked, and again added # to the closely repeated f2 in beat four. This d2 in m. 62 is unanimously unmarked in these sources.

Linear Intervallic Structure
The introduction of # to d2 by Gr 1819 to the previously unanimous unmarked d2 reveals an entirely different and new sense of intervallic and harmonic structuring. Griepenkerl´s clearly intentioned alteration in m. 61, where f# becomes fx, shifts the intervallic relationship from f1#-g#1 (a whole tone), to f#1-f1x (a semitone). Likewise, Griepenkerl´s added # to d2 in m. 62 creates a semitone interval duplicating the semitone relationship previously created in m. 61. Additionally, it also creates a linear intervallic pattern of semitones throughout the entire passage, thereby departing from the whole tone structure present in the previous sources⎯m. 61, g1#-f1#, m. 62, c2-b2 natural.

The semitone relationship in mm. 61/62 implants a fundamentally new harmonic direction to the passage. The significant point here is not only the bearing that these semitone intervals have upon the structure of the entire passage contained within these measures, but also on Griepenkerl´s sense of harmonic structuring. Griepenkerl´s shift from the whole tone to the semitone reflects a significant harmonic aspect of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The passage in the measure and a half of mm. 60/61, in Griepenkerl´s singular version, mirrors his own nineteenth-century harmonic sense and his need to make the music conform to it.

Harmonic Direction
The harmonic configurations of mm. 61/62, and their alterations by Griepenkerl, are defined by the opening and closing of the passages enclosed within this measure and a half.

Here, as in virtually everywhere in Bach´s music, multiple figures, structures, and relationships are in operation, no matter how simple and straightforward the material may appear to be. The first impression of the passage is a musically simple, virtuoso flourish. Viewed solely instrumentally, the triplet passage in mm. 61-62 is, without doubt, a virtuoso flourish. It provides for the performer a zestful moment, among others in the Fantasia, for technical display. On closer observation, the passage is seen to be divided into two segments: the first one descends from the fourth beat in m. 61 to the second beat in m. 62; the second one ascends from the second beat in m. 62 through to the fourth beat. Thus, the passage is now perceived as constructed in a compound structure of inversion⎯the initial descending motion being imitated by ascending motion in the following measure and worked in close intervallic inversion and multiple relationships.

The passage of one and half measures is bounded by the chromatic line and harmonic progress represented by four notes⎯f#2, e2, in m. 61, and e2b, d2, in m. 63. The chromaticism here adheres to the basic structural chromatic process of the composition.

Ill. 13 Measures 61, 63.

Viewed harmonically, the passage is set in between the chromatically modulating progress of four notes. The triplet passage appears precisely midway within the chromatic progression, with the crucial pair of steps at the beginning and end of the passage. The four notes beginning diatonically and ending chromatically provide the gateways for the procedure of the basic harmonic modulatory process. The triplets connect the chromatic progression from m. 61 to m. 63, embellishing it. In so doing, attention is distracted from what is happening within the passage itself.

Appoggiatura – Structural Functions
At the third beat in m. 61, the tonic triad of c# minor is enriched with an appoggiatura, written out in large notes on the staff; this accounts for the eighth-note figure here in the top line. The closing figure of the passage occurs on the opening beat of m. 63; here also is a written-out appoggiatura, albeit in a contracted rhythmic treatment. These appoggiature relate structurally. They open and close the triplet passage. Surrounding the passage in mm. 60-61 as they do, these two appoggiature form a kind of symmetry. But it is not a duplicative symmetry; it is modified rhythmically by the relation of the time values⎯the second appoggiatura being a rhythmic diminution of the first.

Ill. 14. Appoggiatura, measures 61-63. Rhythmic diminution, measure 63.

Straightforward as the two appoggiature figures appear to be in their role of simple appoggiatura, they function, additionally, in multiple levels. The opening pair moves scale-wise. The diatonic process of the two descending steps embedded in the first appoggiatura comprising the first two notes, in m. 61, is countered linearly with the chromatic process of the second appoggiatura, in m. 63, comprising two chromatic descending steps.

Ill. 15.
Diatonic, measure 61, beats 2 and 3 / Chromatic, measure 62, beat 4, measure 63, beat 1

The two pairs of appoggiature form four structurally essential steps. As they descend, a linear chromatic movement to the third inversion of the dominant seventh chord of G minor in m. 63, second beat. Together they prepare the long cadence⎯drawn out through five measures, mm. 63-68⎯for its resolution into the tonic of G minor, which is finally stated explicitly at m. 68.

Ill. 16.

M. 61 M. 63 M. 68

The appoggiature:

1. provide the chromatic linear progression from c# minor to the crucial dominant seventh chord (V7) of G minor in m. 63;
2. function as the appoggiatura motive central both to the recitative section and to the coda;
3. stem from this motive and re-emphasize its motivic character (68).

The chromatic modulation without the embellishmental transition achieved by the four notes functioning as appoggiature, linked by the triplet figure, would have produced:

Ill. 17.

Bach chose not to be so blunt.

Intervallic Scale Structure
The first segment of the measure and a half passage is set in the minor mode; the inverted segment is harmonically inverted to the major mode. The passage opening in c# minor moves through the relative major, E, and A major (considering the unmarked d2 as d2 natural) on its way to V7 of g minor.

The g2 natural at the end of the passage, m. 62, influences the ongoing harmonic direction of the passage. The entire passage is in modulatory transition to g minor where it arrives finally at m. 68. From V7 at m. 63, second beat, a virtuoso figuration commences, based harmonically in the dominant and diminished sevenths of g minor, continuing through to the arrival on the tonic g minor at m. 68, beat one (See Ill. 13).

Griepenkerl´s alterations from sharp to double sharp on f1 in m. 61 and the added sharp on d2 in m. 62 destroy the steps of both the c# minor melodic and harmonic scales as well as the scale steps for A major. The whole tones in both cases, contained in all the listed manuscripts and PN74, follow the pitch tones of the harmonic scale in the descending passage of mm. 61/62, followed by the conventional pattern of the A major scale, which touches on E major on its way to A.

The double sharp in m. 61 in Griepenkerl´s edition destroys the intervallic scale-wise pattern in the harmonic c# minor. The sharped d2 of m. 62 cancels out A major, thereby nullifying the extended modulating process (c#-E-A-g V7-g), which proceeds through mm. 61 to 68. With a1 natural being part of the modulatory process, A major is confirmed in its tonic triad, clearly introduced in the second triplet of the second beat and established through its continuance through the first triplet of the third beat. This triad also functions as a pivot initiating the transition from A major to V7 of g minor in m. 63. Griepenkerl´s sharped d2 destroys the A major triad and its function as a harmonic pivot. If we are to recognize the second d1, which receives no accidental, in the first triplet of beat two as an implied d1#, since the sharp appears previously in the same pitch class, Griepenkerl´s d2# causes the whole passage in mm. 61-62 to be harmonically static; it remains in c# minor and is no longer in active modulatory transition. The harmonic sheen is dulled to a repetitive configuration. The latter is not a characteristic of the harmonic treatment throughout the Fantasia. Quite the contrary: the play of dominant/diminished and modulatory sparkle form the very essence of the structures and processes of the Fantasia.

Moreover, Griepenkerl´s d#2 on the third beat of m. 62 is so close to eb2 on the first beat of m. 63 that it weakens the arrival into g V7. They sound identical in pitch. The sharped d2 anticipates and detracts from the arresting dissonance resulting from the linear interval of an augmented fourth, a2-eb2. The e-flat becomes a pale duplicate of d# instead of a crucial modulatory turning point. Structurally it appears with good cause that d2 in m. 62 remains without accidental in the sources P212, P1083 and PN74. Gr 1819 alone obfuscates the harmonic progression, adding the sharp symbol to d2.

Summary
The unmarked d2 at the end of the measure may be viewed as retaining the sharp allocated to the lower d1 an octave below in the first triplet of the measure. As pointed out above, the sharp sign is entered in m. 62, in the source manuscript P212, before each of the four C in the same measure, c1, c1 and c2, c2, even when repeated immediately in the very same register, as well as when c reappears in the higher register, c2, and is repeated there. In the printer´s model, P1083, the sharp sign is entered for the first c1 on the first triplet of beat two; then it being entered initially for both c2 in the second beat, duplicating P212, they are scratched out. In H&K the sharp is added (squeezed in as noted above) to the first c2 in the upper register on the third beat although it had been nullified in P1083. In the parallel situation of d2 of beat three, a sharp sign is not added in H&K. If d2 were meant to be sharped, it would seem more likely than not to have received the same attention that was given to the c2 that immediately preceded it. No accidental has been compressed into the unplanned space here as has been done for the previous c2. It appears, then, that there is a minimum of ambiguity in the primary source manuscript, P212, the printer´s model, or in H&K, none of which gives an accidental to d2. The original whole tone intervals created by g1#-f1#, the last notes in m. 61, c#2-b1, and e2-d2 in beat three of m. 62, maintain the solid structural foundation of their scale patterns and contribute the modulatory substance to the passage. The note-text has been deliberately changed, then, from what must be recognized as the original text of its sources, in regard to the f1 in m. 61 and d2 in m. 62.

The structural concept in Gr 1819 is based in the semitone, whereas its sources (as well as those of the manuscripts referred to in this study) show the scale patterns of both whole tones and semitones. The damage to the text of future editions is irreparable, as is shown in the Czerny series of editions and other editions that succeeded Gr 1819.

Another note left unmarked by Gr 1819 also concerns us here; it is b1, the third sixteenth of the triplet in the third beat in m. 62. It is shown without a preceding accidental in all the manuscripts considered here, and in Griepenkerl´s three sources P212, P1083 and PN74. Griepenkerl chooses to leave this b1 unmarked also, but his raising of F# to Fx and his sharping of D2 should lead to the sharping of the B2 as well, if the precedent of the repeated linear and harmonic intervallic patterns that he created are to be retained⎯an expectation that arises from the six preceding figures in his note-text, all of which, owing to his addition of the double sharp, now employ semitones.

In order to give Griepenkerl every benefit of the doubt, one may attempt to find his musical sense in the scale structure of the passage, according to his alterations. If Griepenkerl conceived the ascent in m. 62 as belonging entirely to E major, then all of his accidentals are fitting to that key. Accordingly, the relationship of the ascending segment, m. 62, beats two and three, to the descending segment, m. 61/62, beats four and one, would be the standard key relationship⎯E as relative major of c# minor. Similarly, if the concept of intervals in the inverted ascending passage in m. 62 is based on a scale pattern, its model in the descending passage of m. 61 should also be founded on the intervallic relationships of a major scale pattern. But Griepenkerl´s intervallic structure in m. 61 is irreconcilable with either major or minor scale patterns; it fits only the intervallic pattern of the indigenous Hungarian scale, the chief feature of which is the occurrence of an augmented second twice within the octave!

The following examples of Hungarian scale patterns, according to Zoltan Kodály, 1951, show the scale pattern that emerges from Griepenkerl´s intervallic sequence (69).

Ill. 18.

We may be sure that Johann Sebastian was not composing here in this scale pattern⎯unless he experienced a sudden epiphany in the form of a reincarnated moment from his Hungarian ancestor, Veit Bach.

II.A.7. Measures 71-74, Inversion.
Another nice instance of structural devices contained within virtuosic figurations passages is the inversion nestling neatly within these four measures. The entire figure, beginning with an upbeat flourish (mm. 71 to 72) and continuing through the arpeggiated diminished chord, is precisely inverted in mm. 73-74. Here again Griepenkerl missed the structural element of the passage. Had he perceived the precise inversion of the measure-and-a-half passage, mm. 71- 72, at mm. 73-74, he would surely not have altered the above figure in beat four, adding a triplet and four sixty-fourths to the last beat, for this, of course, does not conform to the precise inversion that is present in the original.

Ill. 19. Measures 70-74. H&K, PN74 and Gr 1819, PN1512

II.A.8. Measure 73: Fourth Beat
At measure 73, beat four, Griepenkerl again departs from PN74, which retains the rhythmic pattern present in the parent manuscript, P212, and the printer´s model P1083. This rhythmic pattern is also clearly present in the listed manuscripts (Mus. Mss. P651, P421, P320, AMb548, P803 and their branches) in every case.

Ill. 20. Measure 73. Original Rhythmic Pattern, Gr 1819.

Here again is an unarguable example of a textual alteration by Griepenkerl. That Forkel, with a later view, may have suggested or approved this rhythmic departure remains a possibility. The change of rhythm might be attributed, in principle, to freedom in a rhythmic embellishment device, which the figures of thirty-seconds in beat four essentially are. However, when a specified rhythm is clearly set out in large notes in every reliable manuscript and again for the original printer´s plates⎯in P1083 for PN74⎯this alteration cannot be regarded in any light but that of a conscious manipulation of the original figure. Musically it improves nothing. On the contrary, Griepenkerl´s alterations relax the bright, crisp power of the original rhythm and embellishmental texture of the pairs of thirty-seconds, replacing this liveliness with a slack triplet wiggle and an exaggerated, sudden, speedy figure of sixty-fourth notes.

II.A.9. The Coda. The Final Chord
No manuscript contains the embellished variant of the Coda that is added in Gr 1819 above the staff. Griepenkerl states in his Preface for the edition that this embellished version is “what Forkel sometimes played and taught.” (72). Some editions print the variant as in Gr 1819, and some incorporate the embellished version into the main notes on the staff, giving no explanation of its source. Forkel´s additions here, with all due respect, are recognizably Forkel and cannot be attributed to stylistic realizations by Johann Sebastian. All manuscripts listed in this edition end both the Fantasia and Fugue in the major with the exceptions of P212, two of its branch copies, P228 and U12, as well as P295, branching from P421. These contain the minor chord and are duplicated in H&K and Gr 1819. Peters continues to print the minor chord capitulated in the middle of the nineteenth century to the major endings. The point of interest here is the departure by Forkel from the Picardy third to the later usage of the minor third.

Ill. 21. Measure 79.

III. Performance Indications

Griepenkerl´s 1819 edition of the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue is the first of its kind, aimed particularly at the performer in containing detailed technical and interpretive directions with respect to fingering, dynamics, tempo, and expressiveness via shifting tempo indications, slurs, embellishments, touch and specifically directed tonal treatment, and keyboard finger exercises. Previous to this edition, publications existed in a kind of Garden of Eden. They received few or no interpretive indications, and the role of an editor, understood on the basis of nineteenth- and twentieth-century practices, did not exist. As has been indicated above, the early three printings, which appeared between 1802 and 1815, remained unedited. Kollmann´s publication of 1806 moves in the direction of the performer but does not yet qualify as an edited publication in the modern sense. Although Griepenkerl became Forkel´s most ardent votary, he, in his 1819 Peters edition, was the first to introduce performance directions in the preface and copious performance indications in the music text.

Griepenkerl´s focus was on accurate stylistic performance. Such an edition would not have been deemed necessary had the performance tradition of Johann Sebastian´s era still been alive. In the concluding sentence of his Bemerkungen, Griepenkerl writes: “Correct education in this style is a necessity for everyone, and we, on our part, have received it with heartfelt thanks.” (74). The result is a heavily edited Fantasia.

Of the Fugue, Griepenkerl writes: “The fugue has received very few alterations or markings.” (75). Although it receives comparatively few garnishing in the way of interpretive directions per se, Griepenkerl´s additions of octaves, non-existent in the manuscript sources and PN74, are particularly significant. (See III.E.4)

Concern about stylistic performance had been projected before Griepenkerl´s 1819 publication. Forkel led the way in forging such concern. C.P.E. Bach and Quantz were, of course, earlier outstanding figures in the field of performance instruction. However, their books concentrate more on providing instruction for the achievement of fine musicianship and effective contemporary performance than on problems associated with the stylistic re-creation of music of a past era. Griepenkerl´s Bemerkungen are devoted wholly to the latter concern, and accordingly, the note-text is meticulously and heavily annotated, as can be seen by perusing the music score. The comment of the editors of The Bach Reader on Griepenkerl´s edition (“The markings in this edition are modest and fairly sensible” (76)) is belied by Griepenkerl´s own statement. In his concluding instructions on the performance of the recitative section, mm. 49-56, Griepenkerl writes: “The rest can be understood from our almost overladen indications to satisfy the most serious and tasteful research.” (77) [Rosalyn Tureck´s emphasis]

III.A. Bemerkungen
The title-page lineage statement announces the concern with direct tradition. Griepenkerl´s Bemerkungen go farther. They introduce an entirely new approach to the supervision of music publications, namely, scholarly editing, on the one hand, and to performance, most significantly the goal of duplication of historical performance as the primary concern of the scholar-editor and the performer, on the other. Griepenkerl refers at the very outset to Forkel´s instructions on touch in his book, J.S. Bach´s Life, Art and Works (78). These prefatory Notes by Griepenkerl are devoted primarily to an extended, detailed exposition of touch and fingering presented as stemming from Forkel. He covers other areas, in shorter sections, such as the arpeggio section with its reference to C.P.E. Bach´s instructions in his famous work on the art of playing keyboard instruments (79) and the Coda of the Fantasia for which Griepenkerl writes “the smaller notes above [the staff] show the way Forkel sometimes played and taught.” (80)

In three of four double-columned pages, Griepenkerl contributes detailed descriptions of the most desirable hand position, the best use of hand and arm weight, five-finger exercises for strengthening all fingers in order to equalize the strength of the weaker fingers, adding a recommendation that the “left hand should first do the exercises… and then together with the right hand.” His specific exercises⎯whether of his own devising or of Forkel is not clearly stated⎯are directed chiefly to developing relaxation, strength and freedom in keyboard performance. Forkel devotes most of the third chapter in his biography of Bach to these matters, offering precepts for correct hand position, tone production and fingering (81).

He does not contribute specific exercises as does Griepenkerl. Griepenkerl is the practicing musician and teacher, whereas Forkel is the data-gathering bearer of tradition reportedly handed down chiefly orally through Wilhelm Friedemann, Sebastian´s circle of students and, orally perhaps to a rather minimal extent, Carl Philipp Emanuel.

Griepenkerl claims that his exercises will develop the “…J.S. Bach stroke/touch that Forkel and many of those who studied with him had.” (82) Since Forkel was one year old when Johann Sebastian died, a direct connection with him cannot be envisioned. In view of the nature of the radical departure in the mid-eighteenth century in musical forms, structures, instrumental sonorities, and techniques, the claims of association with J.S. Bach by those whose lifetimes postdated his must be continually rethought and reevaluated.

It should noted that Griepenkerl does not state that the specific finger exercises in his Bemerkungen are those given by Johann Sebastian to his pupils. He explicitly says:

…Figuren für alle fünf Finger mit den Versetzungen, die fast in jeder Klavierschule verzeichnet sind.

“…Figures for all five fingers as in… in all keys which are prescribed in almost every school of keyboard playing. ” (83)

These specific finger exercises are so fundamental for the development of evenness of touch and tonal control on the clavichord and piano that, by 1819, they could not have been claimed to be resuscitated from, and unique to, J.S. Bach. Moreover, to say “prescribed in almost every school of keyboard playing” is to attribute this prescription to current practice within Griepenkerl´s experience, rather than to a period previous to the sixty-nine years that had elapsed since the death of Sebastian.

The evaluation of Griepenkerl´s performance instructions contained in his Bemerkungen is best tested in his performance indications in the music score. These will be considered in the following section on Performance Indications. However, an observation is in order here. Griepenkerl writes:

“In order to spare many words, everyone wishing to benefit from this edition is advised to compare the previous edition note for note with this one and to regard our changes not as presumptuous improvements, but as indications for the true interpretation handed down in an unbroken line directly to us.” (84)

Yet within one paragraph from this statement, Griepenkerl departs from Carl Philipp Emanuel and injects his own preference over an instruction from the latter on how to realize the arpeggios. He gives no structural reasons or historical evidence for such a departure from Carl Philipp Emanuel´s unambiguous instruction.

“The arpeggios indicated by chords in white [i.e. half] notes should, according to C.P.E. Bach´s instructions in his work on the true art of playing keyboard instruments, be played up and down twice on each chord with the fingers remaining on the keys. Here, however, it is better to play each chord up and down only once, and the final chord in each arpeggio series only up once.” (85) [Rosalyn Tureck´s emphasis]

Nevertheless, despite Griepenkerl´s wide-ranging claims, his Bemerkungen remain a classic and useful source as long as performers and scholars involve themselves with the keyboard technique of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, for this is the representative technique of his era. Strands of practices from Johann Sebastian, Carl Philipp Emanuel and the mid-eighteenth century must no doubt be present in the shadows of Griepenkerl´s thinking and writing. These strands remain for us to separate, where possible, from the aesthetic and instrumental practices of Griepenkerl´s own era. For despite his statements in these preparatory notes and his association with Forkel, the performance indications, per se, reflect his own interpretive expectations. His alterations in the note-text and his stylistic performance indications attest to the fact that this edition, notwithstanding certain recognizable emanations from the Forkelian era, is Griepenkerl´s production of 1819, far removed from the original source of Johann Sebastian Bach´s structural, performance and aesthetic concepts.

III.B. Dynamics

Measures 1-48
The most conspicuous departures of Gr 1819 from the innocence of the unedited manuscripts and PN74 are the indications for dynamics and the directions for tempo changes.

The opening two measures announce the stylistic modality of the dynamics, explicit crescendo and diminuendo treatment. These indications appear throughout the Fantasia in both short and long time spans. The latter stretch through two measures (viz. mm. 16-17) and as much as three and a half measures, mm. 11-14. The crescendo/diminuendo symbol is entered frequently in varying shorter time spans. Additionally, verbal directions for crescendo are specified, viz. cresc. (mm. 28, 53), a poco a poco più forte (m. 66), a p. p. più forte (m. 78). These symbols and directions are punctuated with differentiated quantitative levels of volume, represented by pp, p, mf, f. All volume levels are dependent upon graduating increase or decrease, which rules out the harpsichord unequivocally.

Ill. 22. Chart of Dynamics. Measures 1-79.

M.1 and m. 2

Mm. 11-14

M.15 p

Mm. 16-17 f

Mm. 19

Mm. 28 cresc.

M. 30 f

M. 41 and m.48

M. 49-61 Recitativo

M. 66 poco a poco più forte

M. 68 p

M. 69 p

M. 70 f

M. 71 f

M. 72 over top part, second beat; f

M. 74 over top part, first beat;f

From m. 75, third beat appears over top part of every first and third beat

From m. 76 through 78

M. 77 a p. a p. più forte

M. 79 quieto p

The first two measures of the Fantasia stamp the basic concept of dynamic treatment for performance: and appear in both mm. 1 and 2, respectively, within three of the four beats in each measure. A long crescendo/diminuendo indication begins at m. 11 and ends at m. 14. From m. 15 the peaks and lows of these symbols are confirmed and strengthened by p and f, viz. mm. 11-14, fpin m. 15 at the end of the diminuendo symbol; and straddling mm. 16-17, f is placed at its center. At m. 19, still another appears; no succeeds it. The direction cresc. appears for the first time in m. 28, followed by f in m.30. Mm. 41 and 48 show .

Mm. 49-60. Recitative
From m. 49 the symbols are profuse, as are other interpretive indications, bearing out Griepenkerl´s own characterization of his markings here as “almost overladen”. The symbols are indicated within the time span of less than one beat, and dynamic levels are clearly specified from pp to f. The facsimile reproduction of page five of Gr 1819 portrays the profusion of dynamic indications (as well as of other kinds).

Ill. 23. Fantasia, page five of Griepenkerl 1819.

In the approach to the Coda, a poco a poco più forte enters at m. 66 followed by p indications in both mm. 68 and 69 for the single-line embellished figure between the chords, recalling, momentarily, the recitative format. Three short cresc. symbols appear within these embellishment figurations in the upbeat Nachschlag to beats three and four of m. 68 and beat one of 69. M. 79 shows from beats one to three, followed by f for the chord on beat three. Although no other dynamic indication is introduced following this f, m. 71 receives still another f on beat two, as is again the case in m. 72, which also indicates above the slur in the top part on the second beat. In m. 74, the slur in the top part on the first beat receives ; the upbeat leading into the third beat is marked with f on the third beat.

Here, at the Coda, Griepenkerl introduces, above the staff, a version of the Coda reported by him as “the smaller notes above are the way Forkel sometimes played and taught.” In this embellished version Griepenkerl adds over each slur, which, as shown above, is a written-out appoggiatura, its first appearance occurring on beat three of m. 75 and continuing in the succeeding measures on the first and third beats through m. 78. A slur implies the sense of stronger/weaker in the volume relationship of two notes. Further, the first note of the slur/appoggiatura is on the downbeat, which in measured music receives the rhythmic/tonal stress in order to articulate the meter of the figure within the measure. Griepenkerl´s approaches redundancy; but apparently he knew the carelessness of insensitive performers and deemed it necessary to add this direction over every slur. His notes on elementary keyboard touch and technique demonstrate that they are directed to the less sophisticated keyboard player (86).

From the second beat of m. 77 the general directive, a p. a p. più forte, appears, signifying presumably a steady increase above the last indicated level, f at m. 74. Nothing alters this directive until suddenly, with no preparation, on the second beat of m. 79, the last measure of the Fantasia, quieto p appears. After the dynamic Sturm und Drang of the crescendo/diminuendi, and of the varying degrees of f to pp, the Fantasia ends in quieto p⎯one might say, in a whisper/whimper.

Did Griepenkerl really mean subito p here? This style of instantaneous drop from forte to piano on instruments capable of gradual dynamic was, by 1819, deeply entrenched in the performance treatment of dynamics and the aural habits of musicians. Twenty-five years earlier, in 1796, Beethoven´s Op. 2 was published containing his first three Piano Sonatas (87). The dynamic directive of fp is already present in the first movement of his first Sonata, composed between 1793 and 1795. Of equal interest is the fact that Griepenkerl´s short and long crescendo/diminuendo indications are identical with those prevalent throughout the movements of Beethoven´s first Sonata.

It is needless to trace Beethoven´s use of f, fp, etc., through all his succeeding compositions. Suffice it to recall the fact that between 1796 and 1819 almost all of Beethoven´s keyboard Sonatas containing a similar style of dynamic markings had been composed. The Sonata Op. 106, Hammerklavier, composed in 1817-18, was published in 1819, the same year as Griepenkerl´s edition (88). Griepenkerl´s dynamic indications can be carried out most faithfully solely on the piano. They are impossible on the harpsichord, and any attempt to apply them on this instrument would be ludicrous. Griepenkerl´s diminutive indicated within a single beat, and the tonal nuances in the recitative section are indeed conceivable and playable on the clavichord as well as on the piano. The extremes of pp to f that Griepenkerl sets down can be realized on the clavichord on a relative scale within its distinctly limited volume boundaries, even when applied on the large clavichords of the late eighteenth century. The dynamic range of the early nineteenth-century pianoforte already extended far beyond that of the clavichord (See I.G. “Für das Pianoforte”).

The Fugue receives no dynamic indications at all. Does this imply an undifferentiated single level throughout, presumably mf? Performance on such an utterly flat level makes for a sad end for a fugue endowed with the rich potential of its chromatic fugue subject and the imaginative and powerful growth in the development of the contrapuntal and harmonic structures. This growth is reflected also in the ever-widening register of treble and bass, which towards the end of the fugue reaches the virtual limits of the keyboard.

Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach writes on dynamics primarily in terms of distinct levels.

“P means piano or soft; two or more of the letters standing together denote greater softness. MF means mezzoforte or half loud. F means forte; to denote greater loudness two or more of the letters are placed together…In fact, complete passages, including their consonances and dissonances may be marked first forte, and later, piano. This is a customary procedure with both repetitions and sequences, particularly when the accompaniment is modified…I know that this constant changing from light to dark shadings is of no value, for it leads to obscurity rather than clarity and in the end turns a striking relationship into an ordinary one…If the Lessons are played on a harpsichord with two manuals, only one manual should be used to play detailed changes of forte and piano. It is only when entire passages are differentiated by contrasting shades that a transfer may be made. This problem does not exist at the clavichord, for on it all varieties of loud and soft can be expressed with an almost unrivaled clarity and purity.” (89)

Of course, it is absurd to dart from manual to manual for the “detailed” changes of forte and piano; the skilled harpsichordist can indicate, to a limited extent, such subtleties. Carl Philipp Emanuel asserts that the projection of frequently changing dynamics presents a problem and special treatment on the harpsichord but that these do not obtain when playing the clavichord. Note that he still refers to varieties of distinctly differentiated volume levels of loud and soft. As is pointed out here in the footnote 31 of the English translation: “the terms crescendo and diminuendo appear in his [C.P.E.´s] later compositions but only sparingly.” (90a)

Carl Philipp Emanuel expands on dynamic volume levels in his later chapter entitled “Accompaniment”:

“We shall open the subject of performance by discussing volume. Of all the instruments that are used in the playing of thorough bass, the single-manual harpsichord is the most perplexing with regard to forte and piano…” (90b)

Carl Philipp Emanuel continues:

“The fine invention of our celebrated Holefeld which makes it possible to increase or decrease the registration by means of pedals, while playing, has made the harpsichord, particularly the single-manual kind, a much-improved instrument, and, fortunately, eliminated all difficulties connected with the performance of a piano. If only all harpsichords were similarly constructed as a tribute to good taste…! But aside from this invention, the clavichord and pianoforte enjoy great advantages over the harpsichord and organ because of the many ways in which their volume can be gradually changed.” (90c)

These explications on volume levels and instruments are particularly significant because he lived in the period of transition from harpsichord, clavichord and pianoforte in which stylistic, tonal and technical transfers and departures to and from these instruments were in flux. One can perceive, however, the direction in which the aesthetics of performance was heading and it is within this sphere of influence that Forkel and Griepenkerl were nourished.

The density of Bach´s structures frightened away musicians for a long time. Because fugues are complex structures, the notion, grossly misconceived, that complexity represents severity, has drained complex musical structures of their individual characteristic beauty, their musical sensitivity and aesthetic passion. The notion of fugues as embodying mathematical precision, rigor and severity of form grew as a reaction against density of structure. The promotion of the “natural” (Rousseau) was transferred in the era of C.P.E. Bach and Classicism to the thinning of structural organization. The flat-surfaced view of consistent mezzoforte performance for fugal structure does not belong to the great era of fugal composition, as can be seen by the music itself of great fugues, such as those of the forty-eight of the Well-Tempered Clavier and the Art of the Fugue. Emerging from the era of Empfindsamkeit and Classicism, this alien view became entrenched in Romanticism, persisting in many quarters to the present day. Where a fugue is encountered, more often than not, a serious face is put on; all the color and variety created by the very richness of structural relationships in a well-composed fugue are denied. Even in movements far removed from fugues one hears too frequently even today the violinist or gambist pressing on in a straight “unadulterated” forte or mezzoforte with little or no differentiation of the parts, the harpsichordist player remaining in a single registration throughout, the pianist and orchestral conductor performing in a straight-jacketed single mezzoforte (91).

Summary
The instrumental designation that appears on the tile page, “Für das Pianoforte”, is unequivocal. Griepenkerl devotes over half of his Bemerkungen to instructions on keyboard technique, fingering, and tone production. A clavichordist can recognize that Griepenkerl is referring in these Notes chiefly to the clavichord; a pianist can recognize that the same instructions, both as to finger technique and touch, are native to the pianoforte. Griepenkerl himself ends the section on keyboard performance by writing: “The changeover from it [clavichord] to the Forte-Piano presents no difficulties since the touch remains the same…” But Griepenkerl is still reluctant, in 1819, to admit the pianoforte into the mainstream of the musical performing world. He cannot restrain an entertaining sneer directed at this instrument: “…the instrument [pianoforte] allows greater carelessness without necessitating abandoning the treatment, given here, to be followed. Those who disagree have probably not mastered the Klavier like all weak Forte-Piano players.” (92) Griepenkerl here ignores the great pianistic careers of Weber, Hummel and Kalkbrenner, as well as the leaps in piano technique created by Beethoven.

Nowhere does Griepenkerl or Forkel, in his Bach biography, indicate that his work is conceived for the harpsichord. Certainly, Griepenkerl´s dynamic indications of minuscule preempt the possibility of performance on the harpsichord, for such dynamic treatment is not only virtually impossible but even undesirable, due to the plucked nature of its action. An artificial, imposed attempt at imitating pianistic crescendo/diminuendo by way of a forced manipulation of harpsichord pedal registration was recommended by Hugh Gough, instrument maker in London [13]. Gough may have been influenced by Carl Philipp Emanuel´s description of the “Holefeld” (Hohlfeld) harpsichord quoted above. This kind of harpsichord manipulation for artificially calculated crescendo/diminuendo was practiced by his disciples in the 1950´s and 1960´s. However, it was a short-lived school of performance and Gough´s theories were abandoned as were the harpsichords he made.

The dynamic effects of forte/piano are characteristic not only of the harpsichord but also of the stylistic aesthetic of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. The alternation of forte and piano was an outgrowth not of instrumental characteristics, a one-sided view too generally held, but of antiphonal singing. Some of the earliest formalized compositions that represent this compositional and tonal style were introduced by Adrian Willaert, Maestro di Capella at San Marco in Venice, appointed in 1527. Throughout the next two centuries the response or echo effect was the prime sonority characteristic in solo, ensemble, and choral music.

Mus. Ms. P577 contains exclusively distinct dynamic indications of forte and piano. They are indicated as alternations of volume levels in imitative (echo) and sequential passages. Structurally they cannot be faulted for they fit the harmonic and figural aspects of the music. They also fit precisely the instructions of Carl Philipp Emanuel on alternating forte and piano, and old performance practice. The very presence of performance indications in this manuscript has forced it into being viewed by some with suspicion. The forte/piano indications are rejected by von Dadelsen and Rönnau as being of “doubtful authenticity.” If by “doubtful authenticity” is meant that we do not know if Johann Sebastian himself set down or performed these dynamic indications, then their authenticity is surely “doubtful” because no autograph or direct, certain oral tradition exists. However, if by authenticity is meant the stylistic instrumental dynamic treatment pre-1730, then these markings are indeed authentic. No other interpretive indications have been entered in this manuscript.

The evidence supplied by one of the most reliable manuscripts, Mus. Ms. P651, in the hand of Agricola, one of Bach´s most distinguished students, sheds some light on the question of whether this work was played on the harpsichord in Bach´s time. If so, the forte/piano alternation, particularly on a two-manual harpsichord, would be virtually inevitably applied in that line. The title page of Agricola´s manuscript assigns the composition “für Clavier.” The branch copies from P651 state more specifically “pro Cembalo” (P887) and “per il Cembalo” (P289). AmB548, where the title page is signed by Johann Kirnberger, contains the instrumental designation on the first page of the note-text⎯“pro Cembalo”, its branch copy AmB56 places “per il Cembalo” on the title page. Without doubt, the Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue was performed on the harpsichord in and after 1730.

The sonority potential of instruments and the sense of structure in composition are concordant with each other in the mainstream of every musical culture. Instrumental characteristics evolve parallel with the structural idioms of each era. The structuring of responses and sequences, so powerful and prevalent in the music of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, is eminently suited to forte/piano, that is, to successive distinctly changed dynamic levels. C.P.E. Bach was still giving specific instructions in the forte/piano style of dynamics, as late as 1753, when Part One of his Essay was published.

The two keyboards of the harpsichord reflect this tradition of dynamic contrasts, as the multiple keyboards of the organ reflect dynamic and sonority changes. Crescendo and diminuendo entered slowly initially, although the swell pedal on the organ appeared previous to the more focused emphasis on crescendo/diminuendo as an expressive device. In the second half of the eighteenth century it came to be applied increasingly as a prime source of expressiveness in performance. By the second decade of the eighteenth century it was well established in all musical composition and performance, and deeply entrenched in the aural habits of the practicing musician and the listening public.

It is no accident that the expressive requirements for performance that developed in the second half of the eighteenth century favored the use of the clavichord, where subtle volume manipulation is in the very nature of its action, over the harpsichord where such degrees of manipulation are by comparison greatly limited. Equally, the developing fortepiano, which allowed the widest scope for increase and decrease of tone, moved ahead in favor as this characteristic stylistic treatment evolved and became ever more strongly established.

Griepenkerl´s signs for expressiveness in the mode of is not representative of direct linkage with the instrument designated in the manuscripts. Rather, his interpretive indications reflect accurately the stylistic mode of performance settled in the minds, ears and aesthetic sensibilities of musicians entering the third decade of the romantic nineteenth century, and to which the capabilities of the instruments of this era conformed. Griepenkerl indeed may have had the clavichord in mind when he wrote his Bemerkungen and added his diminutive . However, what he had in mind constituted, in his final form, a hybrid product. The stylistic treatment of his performance directions⎯which included long crescendo over several measures⎯cannot succeed on the clavichord no matter how skilled the player, for its virtues reside in detailed small volume relationships. These are natural to the generic pianoforte, but so also are the extended dynamic devices. Moreover, Griepenkerl´s performance indications mirror the romantic performance practices of his time. One has only to look at the music scores by Weber and Beethoven, who are of Griepenkerl´s era, to see that Griepenkerl´s markings are typical of those employed by them, and to realize that Griepenkerl´s edition is not a clavichord edition bur a pianoforte edition, as the title page clearly states.

Tempo Indications

Fantasia. Allegro Molto

Griepenkerl´s first indications for modifying tempo treatment appear with his insertion of fermata at the end of fast-moving passages.

m. 1   

m. 2    

m. 25 - rallentando

m. 26 - a poco a poco più presto

m. 31 - a poco a poco più moto

m. 42 – rallentando p a p

m. 43/44 – più moto

m. 47/48 – p. a p. rallent.

m. 49 – lento

m. 50 – più moto

m. 51 – lento

m. 52 – lento

m. 54 – un poco più moto-lento

m. 55 – un poco più moto

m. 56 – lento

m. 57 – allegro

m. 58 – presto-adagio

m. 59 – più moto-presto

m. 60 – andantino-presto

m. 61 – presto

m. 63 – presto

mm. 68/69 – lento, a poco a poco più moto, lento, allegro

mm. 70/71 – con moto, presto, un poco più lento

m. 72 – presto

m. 73 – un poco più lento

m. 74 – presto, maestoso (the latter term is not strictly a tempo indication, but influential in the flux of tempo)

mm. 75-79 – senza misura appears at m. 75, the opening of the Coda. This is a general directive for the free treatment of the entire Coda.

m. 77 – a p. a p. più forte e presto. Here is clearly stated verbal linkage of dynamics with tempo

m. 79 – quieto p. Quieto is associated not only with low volume but also mood characterization, which also influences tempo treatment.

Are these “authentic” dynamic and tempo directives? How valid are they in terms of the musical structures set forth by Johann Sebastian? Griepenkerl cites the title-page statement as testifying to the authenticity of his interpretive instructions. He writes in his Bemerkungen:

“Every contemporary keyboard player has every reason to mistrust his feelings, and in order to find a way to its authentic interpretation, he must follow directions about which a statement is made in this edition on the title page.

These instructions will be faithfully passed on here, as far as words and indications permit and as far as our shortcomings allow. To save many words, let it be said that…everyone wishing to benefit from this edition is advised…to regard our alterations not as measurable improvements, but as indications for the authentic interpretation directly handed down to us” (93)

These words echo and emphasize the lineage claim of the title page. Are we, then, really to accept Griepenkerl´s style of interpretive instructions as representative of those of Johann Sebastian, via his sons and their students, surviving intact through sixty-nine years of tumultuous cultural changes since his death?

Summary
Griepenkerl, in full belief of the absolute purity of his inheritance, prescribed a specific interpretive musical direction. But, in fact, he superimposed the expressionistic idiom of his own time, far removed from that which formed Johann Sebastian. Griepenkerl´s tempo rubato indications fit hand in glove with the general stylistic modality of his dynamic indications. Inherited from the affective mode of expressing emotion in the era of Empfindsamkeit, and nourished by the stronger currents of Sturm und Drang and ensuing romanticism, these dynamics and tempo rubato indications mirror the aesthetic environment of the second decade of the nineteenth century.

Commentary on rubato in J.S. Bach
The twentieth century may not be right in all its stylistic condemnations and approvals, but with hindsight one can discern at least the most glaring stylistic differences between performance trimmings of the nineteenth century and those of the early eighteenth century. When such differences manifest themselves, not only in manner (performance practices), but also in structural changes, one can feel a certain assurance that trespassing has occurred.

The realistic stance demands that we place aside, at least temporarily, Griepenkerl´s verbal claims and put our trust in the very structures of the music itself, in the hope of discerning Bach´s musical intentions, rather than in Griepenkerl´s literal belief that he was expounding authentic stylistic directives.

The deeper one penetrates beyond the music score and conventional performance habits of mind, the more one finds that Bach´s performance intentions are imbedded in the structures of his music. For example, the figurations in the Fantasia are already free and uninhibited, having been composed in highly irregular time spaces, which in their very irregularity spell rubato. The freedom is written into the time-value allocations and relationships, not only in the recitative but also in the opening and the post-recitative sections of the Fantasia. The rubato and expressiveness are present in the figurations. These cannot be improved by adding fussy push-pull tempo changes as indicated by Griepenkerl; such treatment simply distorts the expressive shaping that Bach´s own time values delineate. In actual practice, most rubato applications to Bach´s irregular time values flatten rather than enhance the original irregularity of the time values.

However, this is not to advocate a pedantic, metronomic performance treatment. Artistic/expressive performance is never based on stopwatch accuracy, and in any period this is not only undesirable, but it is deadly to the art, not only of recreative music but of the creative effort as well. However, flexibility in musical time is treated differently in different cultures. The style of flexibility that is called for in Johann Sebastian´s structures is fundamentally alien to that which emerges from the needs of the later instrumental music⎯based in essentially harmonic forms involving melody/accompaniment and non-contrapuntal structures. This music is virtually bare of an improvisational, recitative style written into the music, except in the unique late works of Beethoven, which remain today still extraordinary. The pageants of improvisatory movements, such as the Fantasias, Toccatas and Recitatives composed in the early eighteenth century are foreign to the aesthetic of the classical era. Sebastian´s large brush strokes in the virtuoso sections preceding and following the Recitative, or the more intimate figurations thereof, set in meticulously worked time values, possess their intense urgency owing largely to the irregularity of their time-value relationships and their rhythmic meter. This urgency and freedom created by the irregular time values are present whether conceived in large or short time spans. Written into the music´s structures, harmonically, rhythmically, and in florid line, virtually all are notated clearly in large notes on the staff. When these are perceived as expressing their structured variety of characteristics rather than solely as note values, the performance treatment emerges and virtually speaks its stylistic requirements. Here, in the notation of the composer lie the performance intentions⎯more intrinsic, more explicit and accurate than interpretive directions, in verbal or symbol indications, in their very evanescent nature ever can equal.

III.D. Embellishment

Fantasia
In this section, the plate number PN74 refers to the first three identical printings of Hoffmeister & Kühnel, Kühnel and Peters, in distinction from the manuscripts P212 and P1083.

The opening section establishes at the outset the prime characteristic of the Fantasia⎯floridity. The entire opening section is continuously active with restless figurations; their changing patterns and unrelieved succession weaves a luxuriant florid texture. Added embellishments are redundant. P212 shows few embellishment symbols throughout the Fantasia except for the recitative section, and even here the added entries are modest in number and allocation. The illustrations below of the recitative section from PN74 and Gr 1819, PN1512, demonstrate clearly the “overladen” embellishment additions. The practice of adding embellishments in appropriate situations is not to be faulted. In question here is Griepenkerl´s overloading an already freely florid treatment that is written into the music itself by Johann Sebastian. The comparative chart lists the embellishments set down in Mus. Mss. P212, P1083, PN74 and Gr 1819. The first appearance of an embellishment symbol occurs at m. 20.

Ill. 24. Embellishment. Comparative Chart.

Measure 20
Mus. Mss. P212, P651, P421 as well as P1083 and PN74 agree on the single ornament symbol. Gr 1819 extends it with a compound double symbol (tr) plus a fast “grace” note that repeats the main note, a2.

Griepenkerl´s expanded design is shown in the chart. The last eighth of this measure is treated to a variant notation. Besides the creation of a tie and the addition of a full-blown four-part chord in the bass marked with an arpeggio symbol, Griepenkerl´s added tr suggests a longer trill than a Mordant as in PN74; this is confirmed by adding a fermata above tr. The insertion of the sharped g2 on the staff is a departure from the sources that must engage our particular interest. Whereas the sharped g2 is implicit in the realization of this simple embellishment within its harmonic context, the seventh degree of A major, P1083 and PN74 deem it necessary to add the # symbol. The manuscript sources, such as that of Agricola, which were most likely copied roughly about seventy years earlier, do not. C.P.E. Bach explains the current need to do so:

“The tones of an embellishment adjust themselves to the accidentals of the key signature… However, I have found it advisable to follow the practice of adding accidental signs to the symbols of ornaments in order to assist the performer” (94)

P1083 and PN74 employ Carl Philipp Emanuel´s practice of adding an accidental to the embellishment symbol, that is, placed above the symbol. This means clearly and simply that the accidental is employed within the embellishment realization. Griepenkerl converts the accidental within the embellishment to a main note context by setting a g#2 as a large note on the staff. The added embellishment treatment is here given to the resolving note, a2, which appears as a “grace” embellishing a repeated a2. This suggests that the embellishment is to begin on the auxiliary note.

By beginning the trill on the g#, the linear interval is that of a fifteenth---to my ears a most gauche and unpleasant landing from A2. It is not compensated by Griepenkerl´s addition of a full tonic bass chord to this beat, given a fermata, to be played simultaneously with the arrival in the upper part on g2. He adds a dotted time value to the g#2, followed by an added “grace” note, a sixteenth note value to be played fast before the beat. The grace is followed by a thirty-second note value on the repeated a2, topped with still another fermata. The double sounding of the a2 following the elongated trill is apparently meant to emphasize the fact that a2, as the dominant major, is the significant arrival pitch. However, the entire measure has already emphasized the dominant by unremitting repetition of the A major triad⎯on every eight beat. The bas in P212 is completely blank here; P1083 and PN74 not only show no chord but explicitly indicate a sixteenth rest for the bass.

This is a powerful moment in the progress of the Fantasia, for m. 20 follows continuous modulatory passages, and the settling of a single triad in the entire measure here constitutes a first major harmonic arrival. However, much is yet to come: the following section continues with virtuoso passages, and the improvisational arpeggio section, followed by the eloquent recitative, and the return to dramatic improvisatory, virtuoso passages leading to the powerful and expressive Coda. Does it not seem too soon for a double fermata?

The addition of two fermate signifies Griepenkerl´s directive for a protracted break between the opening of the Fantasia and the following sections, a time gap not suggested in the sources. Although a break occurs inevitably at this point, an era´s difference can be discerned in the amount of time taken in playing the embellishment and the style of ending this section and beginning the next. Griepenkerl´s performance indications here, explicit and implicit, contravene PN74 and the manuscript sources.

Measure 21
Gr 1819 adds two g on the first beat, where the manuscript source, P212, and PN74 show a thirty-second rest. These increments of g1 are destined to become well known as a result of their acceptance and adoption by later editors.

There is no precedent in the listed manuscript sources to suggest obliterating and filling in the thirty-second rest. Not only does Griepenkerl cancel the rest and replace it with g1, but he decorates this filler by repeating it by way of a grace note on g obviously meant to be played swiftly and before the beat. This produces an overlay of g1 on g1, just as in the preceding measure on a1.

Structurally, the rest is crucial, for the rest is not simply a vacuum in sound and movement. The silence of the rest functions as an intake of breath following the florid profusion of figurations and modulations. It is also a connective bridge between two points linking the preceding a2 in m. 20 to the passage in m. 21that rushes away from that note. Moreover, Griepenkerl´s addition of G2, layered over with a grace repeated on the same note, causes the passage to begin on the downbeat. The unsounded downbeat creates the excitement in the resumption of florid passage-work. The silence of the rest creates harmonic suspense, for the passage begins in an indeterminate harmonic context. The sounded downbeat destroys these and the connective rhythm created by the rest. The freedom and floridity of the linear rhythm of the previous and following passages are cancelled by the insistently sounded double g´s on the regularizing downbeat. Actually, the silent downbeat shapes the connective tissue between the entire first two pages and the arpeggio section, for mm. 21 through 26 forms a kind of upbeat to m. 27, where the tonic key returns and a new section begins. Equally important is the fact that the opening passage of the Fantasia begins on an upbeat with a rest. The resumption of the passages at m. 21 relates to the passage in m. 1, opening on an upbeat preceded by a rest. This is an explicit structural designation and relationship.

In adding a grace to the added sounded downbeat, Griepenkerl has embellished the opening of the passage. Not only is an embellishment there misleading rhythmically and structurally, it is destructive. A ret at the opening of a passage is hardly an appropriate place to exercise a performer´s implicit right to embellish. There are many moments in music where silence is more dramatic and more eloquent than sound. A rest may contribute more to linear rhythm and even to virtuosic brilliance in performance than any sound. When the rest is observed, the passage starts with a breathlessness that adds to the brilliant virtuoso and improvisatory character of the ensuing long passage leading to the arpeggio. The rest also confirms the continuance of a certain rhythmic irregularity. Filling in the rest, as well as adding the overemphasis caused by the repetition on g1, represents a sentimental over-decorative effect recalling the forced, nineteenth-century performance trimmings so vehemently rejected by the twentieth century.

Measure 25
Tr is indicated in the last eighth value above the dotted sixteenth, as it appears in PN74 and P1083. In P212, the dotted sixteenth is left blank. However, the configuration of the dotted sixteenth followed by the two written-out sixty-fourths in a semi-cadential situation is virtually unavoidably suggestive of an embellishment to be added on the dotted note. Moreover, those two sixty-fourth notes are clearly a written Nachschlag to the implied embellishment on the sixteenth note. P1083, PN74 and Gr 1819 adhere to this practice.

Measure 27
This is the opening of the Arpeggio section. The first two beats of this measure set down the design for the rhythmic treatment of the arpeggio realization. The original allocation in P212 of the triplets treatment of arpeggios written out on the staff is essentially retained in P1083, PN74 and Gr 1819.

Measure 30
Gr 1819 adds the arpeggio symbol on the first beat in the upper and lower chords; neither are present in its predecessors, PN74, P1083 and P212. The time values of the third and fourth beats here again depart from Griepenkerl´s parent sources. The original value of the third and fourth beats is a half-note value, shown in a single chord. Gr 1819 divides the chord into two quarter values, with a single b2 flat on the third beat followed by the chords in the treble and bass, now in quarter value on the fourth beat. Further, Griepenkerl enhances the third beat with an added “grace note” to be played fast and before the beat. Arpeggio signs are added to the bass and treble chords on the fourth beat, where the time value is further extended by a fermata placed above and below.

The same pages in PN74 and PN1512 provide the clearest instances of the accretions in Griepenkerl´s edition reflecting his notions of stylistic performance. PN74 duplicates the entire measure as given in P1083 and P212, with an unrealized chord for beats three and four. Griepenkerl has aided the unknowledgeable performer by adding the arpeggio symbol to both the bass chord on the first and the chord on his fourth beat. But now he again adds a fast appoggiatura on the third beat to be played before the beat, repeating a crucial note, the b2 flat, for emphasis. This is the third time in thirty measures that he has done so⎯first in m. 20, second in m. 21 and now again in m. 30. It will not be the last one.

These additions by Griepenkerl merit analysis. To emphasize yet further the diminished chord in which b2 flat performs a primary function, Griepenkerl splits the original half-note value into half, creating two single quarter-note values. This stratagem causes the note to be repeated three times within the span of two quarter-note values. Griepenkerl reserves the diminished chord for the second half of the original half-note value and splashes it with arpeggiation. As though the emphasis produced by the added appoggiatura, the repetition three times of B2 flat, and the late arrival of the full diminished chord accentuated by the arpeggiation were insufficient to call notice to it, Griepenkerl adds a fermata to the chord. The original embellishment was a written-out Doppelschlag and a trill on the second beat of the measure on the dominant A2 in the same rhythmic configuration as that in m. 25⎯that is, a dotted note followed by a written-out Nachschlag of two notes in contracted note-values.

The swelling in Gr 1819 of embellished effects produces nothing but repetitiveness. Griepenkerl´s repeated notes are not bona fide embellishments. Moreover, the diminished chord in m. 30, chained to Griepenkerl´s fermata, becomes static, and the rhythmic pull of the tie on the op note of this chord to the first note of the passage in m. 26 is nullified. The original half-note value on the diminished chord as approached from the dominant key, A major, produces suspense, and the tie of the top b2 flat to the following brilliant flourish pulls the diminished chord out of its dramatic rhythmic suspension into the turbulence of a roving figuration of thirty-second note-values that extends through two full measures. The splitting of the half-note value and the repetitiveness caused by the appoggiatura with the arpeggiation accentuating the weak fourth beat that is further weighted with a fermata, dilates the time span of these last two beats. With this dilation the rhythmic relationships to the sections that bound this measure are distorted. The dilation of m. 30 shrinks to insignificance the rich floridity⎯written in by Johann Sebastian⎯of the great passage immediately following, in mm. 31 and 32, and the pause on the fermata breaks up the long sweep.

The aggrandizement of m. 30 is misplaced also harmonically. The opening four measures of the arpeggio section lead into the diminished chord; it is the highest in pitch, the widest in range of register, and Sebastian saw to it that it received full emphasis in a half-note value, whether arpeggiated or not. Griepenkerl thins the expansion by arriving on a single b2 flat following the rich texture of the full-bodied arpeggiated chords. The original chord in half-note value forms the peak from which the following exuberant passage tumbles down for two full measures, returning to the center register, and traversing m. 34 in regaining its equilibrium fully only at m. 35.

Griepenkerl´s breakup of the half-note value brings on the gilding of the added fermata, utterly unnecessary if the original time value is retained. The fermata is also too superficial a device to form the strong foothold required by the next two to three measures. Moreover, the contrast between the solidity of the original chordal texture and the linear floridity pales, diminishing the internal drama of the diversified rhythm and texture.

The modulatory process of the opening measures of the arpeggio section is based on the continuous harmonic movement into the diminished configuration at m. 30. The diminished chord as employed in beats three and four has no direct cadential function. On the contrary, it serves not only as a jumping-off point for the succeeding florid passage but also as a magnet for the leap out of the consonant A major triad occurring in the third beat.

To depend on sheer repetition of single notes to project expressive emphasis is a pedestrian device, crude within any musical style under virtually any circumstance. Richard Wagner knew this well⎯he immortalized this crudity in Beckmesser´s “Prize Song” in Die Meistersänger von Nürnberg. The sole possible admittance of Griepenkerl´s repetitions on climactic or arrival points might be on the clavichord, where these indicated repetitions may be charitably interpreted as a Bebung device. But this is a slippery excuse because the similar device of a repeated note at m. 21 filling in a rest cannot be justified as a necessary Bebung.

The repeated notes here are as absurd on a harpsichord as they are tasteless and unnecessary as a climactic, sonority build-up on a fortepiano. The fermata on the diminished chord contradicts and contravenes its function. Apparently Griepenkerl wishes to dramatize this moment, adding not only the fermata but the repeated note. Such distension produces an exaggeration of effect for effect´s sake, the hallmark of the worst aspects of romantic sentimentality and exhibitionism in performance. Being repetitive and static, this device contains no figurative element that might redeem it, and creates no structural relationship, harmonic, melodic or motivic. The essence of embellishment is contained in the centuries-old concept and practice of fleshing out linear, harmonic, and rhythmic figures; this concept nourished Johann Sebastian Bach and made possible the splendor of the conceptualization and figuration of the Fantasia, which is one of the greatest realizations of improvisational embellishmental figurations ever conceived.

Measure 33
Griepenkerl again indicates a realized treatment in the return to the chordally-notated section, opening out the first chord in arpeggiation, and adding a rhythmic flourish on the second beat to the top line. The notation of chords from m. 33, as they appear in P212, P1083 and PN74 surely implies the restoration of the arpeggiating figuration indicated at m. 27. Griepenkerl spells out the return to the rhythmic triplet figuration as indicated at m. 27. But his penchant for creating repeated notes for the purpose of emphasis is again present here in the same manner as in m. 30. It is encountered in increasing occurrence in the recitative and again in the last two measures of the Coda sections of the Fantasia.

Measure 59

The Note-text

Ill. 25 Entire measure, P212, Gr 1819.

P1083 duplicates this measure precisely as it appears in P212. Forkel´s manuscript adds the double appoggiatura in both the upper and lower parts on the first beat, and again, in the upper part on the third beat. Griepenkerl 1819 adheres to this version, and adds and arpeggio to the chordal figure, which has become a feature in the Gr 1819 recitative section. In m. 58, Griepenkerl´s sources show on the second beat in the upper part. This is clearly a written-out appoggiatura. Griepenkerl chooses to over-dramatize this appoggiatura by doubling its time value thus . The same doubling occurs immediately following. The third and fourth beats of the measure in P212, P1083, and PN74 show ; Griepenkerl alters it to .

Gr 1819 follows P212 in straightening out the irregular rhythm of the bass figure in the first beat of m. 59. The bass figure is shown in P651 and P421, and their branches, as ; in P212 these are even eighths, and P1083 and PN74 follow suit. IN the last three eighths of the previous measure all sources, including P212, P1083, and PN74, show three even eighth-note values. Griepenkerl sets down .

At first glance this would appear to be a continuation of this tonal device⎯the halving of the note value to indicate that this first note of the phrase is to receive less tone than the following note. However, since the motivic recitative figure has been given up already almost two measures before, and since these are eighths rather than the pervasive sixteenths of the recitative figure, the halved note value may be Griepenkerl´s own expressive device in the style of notes inégales. Since the reliable listed manuscripts show a similar treatment for the two eighths in the bass on the first beat in m. 59 as noted above, three equally even eighths in both parts would appear to have been undesirable. However, three even eighths are entered in Forkel´s hand in m. 58 for the third and fourth beats, and these are retained in P1083 and PN74. Griepenkerl´s halved note value here, if meant as a kind of notes inégales, is a valid treatment in this context.

The Double Appoggiatura – Measures 59/60
Griepenkerl adds two double appoggiature to the first and third beats of m. 59. Here he is faithful to P212, where these are present. P1083 and PN74 follow suit, so in Griepenkerl´s limited view, he has here retained the unbroken lineage from P212. However, P212 differs from the reliable listed manuscripts in the addition of these two double appoggiature.

A deeper look at the material agreed on by all manuscripts⎯the large notes on the staff⎯reveals a witty structural treatment in mm. 59/60. There are indeed two double appoggiature written into the figuration. In m. 59, the first double appoggiatura is contained also in beat two, but here it is inverted in two ways⎯in inverted motion and also in rhythmic placement, inverted to the second sixteenth of beat two. Forkel and Griepenkerl added two double appoggiature, both in direct motion. Repetitiveness is introduced here, for now there are three double appoggiature within three successive beats of m. 59, and in relation to m. 60 there are three double appoggiature all in the same motion on beats one and three of m. 59 and beat two of m. 60. With these two unstructured additions the rhythm and structural play of inversion is muted.

Ill. 26. Measures 59/61.

M. 59, second beat M. 60, second beat M. 61
Double Appoggiatura Inverted Motion
Direct Motion

Gr 1819 adds still another fillip to this measure, changing the pair of sixty-fourth notes in the written-out double appoggiatura to enter one thirty-second note value sooner. This destroys the double appoggiatura altogether; the rhythmically shifted pair of sixty-four here produces an arpeggio skip through the diminished chord configuration. P212, P1083 and PN74 preserved the double appoggiatura. Possibly Griepenkerl did not perceive the inversion element in the second double appoggiatura in m. 60. In any case, this rhythmic alteration from Griepenkerl´s sources is totally original with him. Did Forkel change his mind frequently since 1802 and is he responsible for the multifold alterations and additions in Gr 1819 as indicated in Griepenkerl´s Bemerkungen, or are these Griepenkerl´s own impressions/expressions? One unambiguous instance of Griepenkerl´s injection of his own taste is present in his Bemerkungen where, in reference to the arpeggio section, he alters C.P.E.´s instruction to arpeggiate the chords “in white notes twice up and down” by writing: “Here it is better when one arpeggiates each chord only one time up and down.”

Repetition
Repetition is a stylistic characteristic of Gr 1819. Repeated notes in the form of a fast grace to be played before the beat are not only added in the previous section, in mm. 20 and 21, but they now spice the first beats of mm. 49, 51, 63, the first and third beats of m. 69, and the conclusion of the Fantasia on the first beat in m. 79.

In m. 74, P1083, PN74, and Gr 1819 add a1 to the last chord in the upper part in beat four. This a1 is not present in P212. With a1 included again on beat one in m. 75, a1 appears five times in succession on the five eighth notes, in P1083, PN74 and Gr 1819. The change occurred initially in P1083. Here Forkel is the most likely source for this alteration from the manuscript. In mm. 74 and 75, the P651, P421, Amb548, P803 and P320 agree with P212.

Besides the sheer repetition caused by five successive a1 on five successive eighth notes, the element of voice leading is destroyed. The lower part of the last quarter value contains two eighths, the second of which is tied. The two chords on these eight-note values are in three parts. The tie on g1 calls attention to the lower part that leads on into the f1# in the second eighth of beat one in m. 75. Beats three and four of m. 74 comprise the cadence leading to d V7 (9) of m. 75, which is the preparation for the long cadence of the Coda, leading finally to D minor. This with the pivotal chord of d minor V7 (9), forms the harmonic point of departure for the entire Coda. The tie on g1 leading to f1# is crucial in focusing on the pivot that the dominant seventh (ninth) of d minor represents.

The addition of a1 to the chord containing the tie thickens the texture and blankets the tie, thereby detracting from the voice leading element. Moreover, the last two beats of m. 74 plus the first beat of m. 75 focus on cadential chords. This focus alters the linear rhythm. The rhythmic focus that the chords of the following Coda create does not begin until the third beat of m. 75, dovetailing with the upbeat/downbeat rhythm of the linear upper part. This rhythm forms one of the prime structural elements of the Coda. The added a1 causes five chords to be played in succession. Emphasis is here placed on chords and cadence. The original version in P212 of three chords, followed by a tie on the a1, touches on and passes through d-I6/4, V on its way to d-IV on beat two of m. 75. The last two beats of m. 74 contribute only a half cadence. The tie in the middle part returns the focus on voice leading and individual parts; the chordal focus is delayed till the constant figure of the Coda is introduced at the third beat of m. 75. The repetitive five-chord sequence that results from this added note exaggerates the arrival context of the half cadence, which is actually only transitional, and anticipates the chordal focus of the Coda. By doing so, it diminishes the power of the Coda chords and their regularly recurring rhythm, which, with the chromatic element, form the characteristic elements of motion in the Coda. Sebastian saves the arrival of the tonic resolution for the last moment, following a long, complex chromatic cadence. The maestoso direction entered above the third and fourth beats of m. 74 reinforces Griepenkerl´s premature chordal mass and overemphasis on the transitional half cadence.

Arpeggiated and non-arpeggiated Chords. Measure 74
Every chord from m. 50 through to the end of the Fantasia at m. 79 receives, in Gr 1819, an arpeggio symbol. The sole exception occurs at these chords on the third and fourth beats of m. 74. The very omission of arpeggio symbols here signifies that Griepenkerl indeed did intend an effect of vertical chordal mass. As noted above, his added maestoso is a clear verbal direction to enhance these emphases.

Ill. 27. Measures 60/61.

Griepenkerl contributes a variant reading in mm. 60—61. The PN74 reading, which retains the diatonic outline of the diminished triad leading to the seventh in m. 61, derives from P1083 and P212. Griepenkerl fills in the passage with continuous passing tones necessitating a doubling of time values in this upbeat to m. 61. Griepenkerl then changes the two repeated eighths on the first beat to a single quarter note. By adding notes to this upbeat passage, Griepenkerl anticipates the diminished seventh chord, which in his sources enters on the strong downbeat of the following measure. By adding the seventh degree to the diminished triad, the power of the entry of the seventh in m. 61 is diluted.

The variance in Griepenkerl´s upbeat to m. 61 is not so much a note-text variant as it is a more closely filled-in embellishment device of passing tones between intervals of a third, within the outline of the diminished seventh chord. The addition of passing tones is a valid traditional performance usage where the musical structure merits or suggests it. But this kind of addition must relate to the context of the larger phrase, not solely a single figure in isolation. These thirty-second note values, combined with anticipating the entry of the seventh degree and the rhythmic stoppage at the arrival of the figure on a single held quarter note at the first beat of m. 61, do not take into account the ongoing nature inherent in the original triadic and eighth-note figuration. Moreover, instead of the magnetic pull of the moving eighths into the semicadence, C# minor – V-I, at beats two and three in m. 61, Griepenkerl´s modification halts the rhythmic advance and subducts the energy of the harmonic arrival. The original two repeated eighth notes are composed to point up the linear peak with a continuous rhythmic flow. These two repeated eighths are different from the repetitions created by Griepenkerl in previously added grace notes. Those constitute sheer repetitions based on the notion that repetition per se projects emphasis and usually creates a static effect. Here at m. 61, the repeated eighths serve as an active rhythmic device interwoven with the larger harmonic phrase that continues through beat three. Curiously, Griepenkerl here rejects the single case of outright original repeated notes.

In summary: the original, less busy, upbeat to m. 61 connects with the ongoing rhythm of the two eighths leading into the half cadence on beats two and three of m. 61; these rhythmic relationships form one cohesive and well-coordinated phrase. Structurally, the single long note of Gr 1819 on the first beat of m. 61, following the doubled note-values in the upbeat to m. 61, causes a sudden stoppage of the rhythmic progress and breaks the whole phrase, which continues in m. 61 through beats two and three, into two parts. The doubling of thirty-second-note values to sixty-fourths, linked to the augmenting of the eighth-note values to a quarter, adds an element of rhythmic exaggeration to an already free configuration, and it destroys the necessary cohesion within the comparatively short time span of this final recitative phrase. This style of exaggerating short and long time-values constitutes the very essence of the flowery excrescences typical of the worst in “romantic” performance, whether of Bach´s or any other composer´s music.

Commentary on the Embellishment Concept
The art of embellishment that reigned in Western music for roughly about four centuries until the late eighteenth century is based on a principle that is the very reverse of repetition. Embellishment creates the variety that fills out harmonic implications, imparts irregularity to rhythmic figuration, connects intervallic relationships and enriches the general texture of a line or figure. Thus, the linear figure is made more florid, the harmonic progressions and their implications more articulated and more piquant. Sheer repetition of notes is antithetical to the art of embellishment, for the function of embellishment is movement and enrichment of musical textures, not in random fashion however, but according to structural principles.

The phasing out of embellishment devices written by way of symbols in the note-text, or added by the knowledgeable performer, was already occurring previous to 1750. In regard to embellishment, F.W. Marpurg, in 1749/50, clearly anticipated the conceptual approach and practice of the fashionable composers of the mid-eighteenth century:

“A special distinction of Berlin music is that it makes very sparing use of manners and embellishments; but those that are used are the more select and the more finely and clearly performed. The performances of the Grauns, Quantz, Benda, Bach, etc., are never characterized by masses of embellishments. Impressive, rhetorical, and moving qualities spring from entirely different things, which do not create as much stir, but touch the heart more directly” (95)

Marpurg makes it clear that this Berlin school had moved so far away from the application of embellishment characteristic of earlier musical thought and performance that by 1750, the year of Sebastian´s death, this practice was regarded as out-of-date by the musical establishment. The composers named by Marpurg represent the accomplished departure from the earlier embellished style.

Regarding addition of embellishment, discriminate embellishment addition to the recitative and Coda sections, for example, is a valid stylistic practice in the performance of the music of J.S. Bach that would be universally acceptable. But the device of repetition for purposes of emphasis is more applicable when embellishment is not existent as a stylistic principle in composition and performance. Repeated notes do appear occasionally in Johann Sebastian´s music, but they arise out a compound embellishment situation:

Ill. 28. Partita, E minor, BWV 830, Measures 1 and 2.

The repeated note in the above figure relates to the previous dotted eighth and the following appoggiatura, written out on the staff. It is not introduced as an isolated effect for emphasis as in Gr 1819, m. 21, etc. This practice represents a later style of musical thought. Two examples from Schubert´s Impromptu, Op. 142, No. 2, A-flat major illustrate this point.

Ill. 29. Schubert: Impromptu Op. 142, No. 2, A-flat major.

It may be argued that repeated notes may constitute an ornamental device and therefore fulfill an ornamental function. There is no gainsaying this rationale and no need to counter it. However, it is a device that, in its very concept, is opposed to that which was intrinsic to musical thought throughout three to four centuries of Western music until the era of C.P.E. Bach, Graun, et al. That principle was variation, linear, rhythmic, and the enhancement of explicit and implicit harmonic relationships. The fundamental principle, the constructs, fabric and musical elucidation that grow from this principle belong to a different world from that of music virtually devoid of the luxuriance of ornamental implications and explications. Here the repetitive device serves a much more limited and much less ambitious function. Bach´s embellishment style pervades his music, whether notated in symbols or written out in large notes on the staff. A single example suffices to remind how he conceived embellished figuration. The lovely melodic solo line given to the oboe in Cantata BWV 156 is transformed via the traditional embellishment idiom that formed his musical concepts.

Ill. 30. Bach´s way of Embellishment. Cantata BWV 156, Dominica 3 post-Epiphanias. “Ich steh´ mit einem Fuss im Grabe”, first movement, oboe part.

Ill. 31. Clavier Concerto, BWV 1056, F minor, No. 5, second movement, embellished clavier part.

III.E. Fugue

III.E.1. Note-Text. “Changes and Markings”
Griepenkerl comments on his editing of the Fugue in the penultimate paragraph of the Bemerkungen:

“The Fugue required very few changes and markings. The tempo is given, in the manner of the newer keyboard music [Rosalyn Tureck´s emphasis], a few misprints have been corrected, and a few difficulties caused by the old orthography have been simplified by writing them differently.” (96)

Griepenkerl´s abjuration of “changes and markings” applies chiefly to the first four pages of the Fugue. This restraint allows some thrift on the part of the publishers who re-used the old plates PN74 for these four pages. Gr 1819 is the fourth and last to employ PN74. For the next four pages of the Fugue, the plates are redesigned, and the plate number reverts to 1512 of the Fantasia, owing no doubt to the significant changes in the note-text that Griepenkerl introduces, notably the addition of octaves. “Changes and markings”, however, are not entirely absent even from the first four pages. Apparently, Griepenkerl considered the interpretive character and articulation of the countersubject too important to go unmarked. At its first entry in m. 8, he adds three slur marks on the upbeats and three staccato indications, in the wedge form, on the downbeats.

III.E.2. Measures 46-47 – Passing Tones, Schleifer, Grace Note
The note-text in the third beat of m. 45 and first two beats of m. 46 has undergone two stages of evolution in its passage from P212/1083 to PN74 to Gr 1819. Griepenkerl´s predilection for employing repeated notes for purposes of emphasis (See Fantasia, Embellishment, p.) appears again in m. 46. He adds an unmistakable grace note to precede the second beat in the alto, the sole moving part in the measure.

P212 shows only a quarter note in the alto, for the last beat of m. 45. P1083 duplicates P212; PN74 adds a passing tone e1 on the last beat of m. 45, which results in a continuation of eighth-note values smoothing out the gap pitch-wise and rhythmically between d1 and f1; no embellishment is entered for f1 in m. 46. Gr 1819 adds the passing tone, as in PN74, and going further, a grace note, not to f1 on the first beat but to the repeated f1 on beat two, producing thereby three f1 in quick succession. The listed manuscripts throw light on these points. Although neither embellishment nor passing tone is entered in P421, Amb548, or, as noted above, P212, both a passing tone and Schleifer symbol are added in Agricola´s P651, and in Krebs´ P803. P320, omitting the passing tone, adds a written-out Schleifer to f1 on beat one in m. 46, confirming the Schleifer symbol in P651 and P803 (97).

Ill. 32. Measures 45-46. P421, P212, PN74, Gr 1819. Passing Tone, Schleifer and Added Grace Note.

The Schleifer is, of course, structurally appropriate. It prepares an arrival on the augmented fourth that, although approached from opposite directions in the two upper parts, still produces a bald fourth owing to the contrapuntal context. The Schleifer causes the arrival on the first beat to fall on the interval of a consonant sixth (d1 – b1) in the alto and soprano parts. It also aids in outlining the diminished seventh on the first beat in the bass and alto parts (G#1 – f1) by adding d1, the critical harmonic indicator d iv of the cadence that resolves in A minor at m. 49. Griepenkerl´s fast grace note in m. 46 following the f1 on the first beat emphasizes the bald fourth arrived at in the soprano and alto. Moreover, the f1 is simplistically reiterative and, followed by still another f1, it produces three repeated f1 in close succession in meaningless repetition. The dotted rhythm created by the fast grace confuses the rhythm of the subject; no rhythmic variety is required here. This grace note relates to no structural, melodic, rhythmic or ornamental context nor to anything preceding or following in the fugue. Such a device, repeating the same note for purposes of expressiveness and/or emphasis, is a hallmark of Chopin, who employs it, however, in exquisite taste, for his use of grace notes is uniquely intrinsic to his musical idiom. The second movement of the Piano Concerto, Op. 21, No. 2, in F minor, illustrates this point (98).

Ill. 33. Chopin: Piano Concerto, Op. 21, No. 2, in F minor.

The repeated notes that form part of Chopin´s imaginatively wrought embellishment serve the expressiveness of suspended harmonies and often create elongated appoggiatura that cause a suspension of rhythmic and melodic resolution as well. The delicate tension produced thereby forms the very core of the aesthetic of romantic instrumental expressiveness, and Chopin was of course one of the greatest representatives of this kind of sensibility, and a total master of its idiom.

Gr 1819 does not go as far as Chopin, neither in the number or frequency of his added repeated note, but the device and its purpose are the same⎯to heighten expressiveness and emphasis. But whereas such use of repeated notes fits in with Chopin´s idiom, Griepenkerl´s repeated notes are small patches stuck on to an idiom and structure in which repeated notes remain an alien cosmetic. The result is not only anachronistic but maladroit and sentimental.

III.E.3. Measures 49-52. Stemming, Hand Disposition, Inversion.

Ill. 34. Fugue: Measures 49-52. PN74, Gr 1819.

Gr 1819 changes the stemming of the middle part in mm. 49 and 50. Whereas P212, P1083 and PN 74 divide the stemming of the sixteenths in the alto part in a grouping of 3-1-3-1, Griepenkerl alters the stemming to form the grouping of 2-2-3-1. The alteration affects the hand disposition. The stemming of the Gr 1819 sources indicates that the first three sixteenths are played in the right hand, the rest with the left hand. Griepenkerl´s deviation indicates that the first two sixteenths are played with the right hand and the rest with the left hand.

The change of groupings may have been attributed by Griepenkerl to avoiding the “few difficulties caused by the old orthography”, which here are “simplified” by writing them differently.” However, the original orthography causes no difficulty in the physical carrying out of the figures or in the musical perception of them. Griepenkerl´s alteration does not contribute a facilitation for any size of hand or keyboard. Actually, the original orthography lies more naturally in the hands; it presents a simpler position for each hand than does the split of four sixteenths into two groups, indicated by their placement in the treble and bass clefs, to be played in separate hands. It is self-evident that these four notes are musically connected within one phrase. The shift from the third to the fourth sixteenth breaks the four-note phrase and carries the danger of misplaced accent on the fourth sixteenth, for the transfer to the left hand here occurs on the weakest beat of the figure. Since it is the first note to be played by the left hand, the danger lies in its receiving tonal stress. This recalls Griepenkerl´s own strong admonition in the recitative section, where he went so far as to alter the time values as a visual device to warn the performer to give less tone to the first note of the phrase, which falls on the second (weak) sixteenth of the quarter value.

The division of the hands may appear to be a purely mechanical activity, and implied alterations of hand disposition via the division of groupings a purely visual device, remote from musical implications. However, in many cases an altered hand disposition too often alters the musical perception not only of the shaping of the inner sub-phrases but also of the articulation and shaping of the whole phrase, which in turn affects the harmonic and rhythmic perception and delineation. Although hand disposition and fingering may indeed be influenced by an individual sense of ease, here no discomfort arises from the original disposition, and the musical four-note phrase is preserved. The significant point to consider in this alteration is not the change of orthography or hand disposition but the musical dangers of misplaced tonal accent, the loss of the sequential figuration, and the weakening of the harmonic relationships.

Even with skillful control of equalized tone and touch, a subtle psychological undercurrent of shape may result from seeing⎯that is, conveying to the brain⎯a certain shape in the notation. The hands and fingers do not operate independently of the brain image. They reflect, as in a mirror, the exact imprint registered in the process of perception. The shaping of PN74 conveys two phrases of four sixteenths each, related to each other sequentially; Gr 1819 conveys three phrases of unequal length⎯two two-note phrases followed by one four-note phrase, and the sequence originally present is now virtually excluded.

On an instrument of light tone and action such as the harpsichord, clavichord, and pianoforte of the early nineteenth century, the hand disposition can reflect almost automatically the disposition of hands and fingers, translating aurally into phrasing shapes. In inexpert hands that do not possess skilled tonal control on the keyboard, the difference in fingering audibly alters the articulation of the shape. The harmonic and shaping implications of PN74 encourage the completion of the resolving triad, a-I, within the first four-note phrase in m. 49, and the modulatory movement of the second four-note phrase to F# that prepares for and introduces V7 of G major on the third beat. The break-up of the phrases by Griepenkerl encourages a weaker harmonic sense of the resolution on a-I thereby diluting the sense of arrival on this tonic and the modulatory phrase into G major. The harmonic sense of these four-note phrases lies in their modulatory aspect, each leading into a new harmonic situation, in modulation and resolution.

Further, this four-note phrase is a motivic figure, making up this episode; it returns at mm. 97-100. At these later measures, Griepenkerl confuses the pattern completely by altering only the second measure (m. 98) of the episode. Although the music of both episodes is structurally a perfect match, Gr 1819 is random. The original sources preserve this four-note figure as an integral unit. At mm. 49-52 Griepenkerl alters it on the first beat in the first two measures only, destroying both the unity of its pattern and its juxtaposition in the four-measure episode. In so doing, the structural play of this figure is annulled. The interest in this episode lies not only in its modulatory play, but also in the inversion of the figure in the third and fourth measures of the episode. This complementarity is voided as a result. Griepenkerl in all conscience missed the structural significance of the figure as well as the structural relationships of this entire episode both here and later, in mm. 97-100.

III.E.4. Octaves
The four pages that comprise the second half of the Fugue are treated with significant additions to the score, thereby requiring new plates, the number of which reverts to the same plate number, 1512, as the Fantasia. Gr 1819 now introduces a device that does not make its appearance again in other editions besides his until the much-vilified editions of the later nineteenth-century transcribers (99). This device embodied the most tabooed of all anachronistic errors for this era⎯amplification via octaves.

Added octaves are first introduced in Gr 1819 at mm. 91, 92 and 93. These serve the function of emphasizing the pedal point; they are repeated again for the same function at mm. 108, 109, and 100 as well as mm. 155, 156 and 157.

Ill. 35, Octaves, Pedal Point, mm. 91, 92, 93.

The addition of the octave in the lower register expands the pitch range of the composition. The lowest originally notated pitch in the fugue is D2 in the bass part. At mm. 91, 92 and 93, Gr 1819 introduces B3 at m. 108, 109 and 110 and G3 and A3 at mm. 155, 156 and 157. The expansion of register beyond the lowest originally notated pitch is then applied to the entire subject in the bass at mm. 140-146; these added octaves stretch the pitch framework again to the octave below, E3.

Ill. 36. Measures 140-146.

Griepenkerl´s expansions of register could justifiably be regarded as equivalent to sixteen foot on the organ, and there is no disagreement that sixteen foot was an organ device known well enough and employed in Bach´s time⎯also occasionally indicated by himself in his organ works. However, the transfer of this device to pianoforte jets us into an entirely alien culture. It represents a new keyboard technique and its attendant, later nineteenth-century pianistic sonority.

Octaves per se, that is, to be performed with one hand, as usually understood by many pianists, did not exist in the keyboard playing of Sebastian´s time. Griepenkerl´s adjunction to the single-note part announces a major portent for the distortions to come in Bach performance⎯pianistic octaves. For with added octaves, no longer is a part played with single fingers within a linearly conceived motive, as in sixteen foot or four foot, where the pitch automatically sounds an octave below. In piano octaves, the hand is now forced to utilize the fingers at each extremity of the hand in order to encompass two notes within a span of eight keys. When the fingers are free to variously articulate the shaping of a linear structure, the linear and contrapuntal designs are not destroyed. But these are obliterated with the application of simultaneously played two-note figures separated from each other by an eight-note gap. The result is disjunct “octave” playing as we know it in pianist technique; a linear “legato” or phrased design is impossible for most keyboard players (100).

Curiously enough, Gr 1819 omits the original doubled treatment of the inverted countersubject at mm. 158 and 159. P212 adds the doubling only for the first quarter value in m. 158. However, this doubling is present not only in P1083 an PN74 but also in the most reliable listed manuscripts, thereby confirming or, at least, reinforcing the fact of their original existence, representing the intention of Johann Sebastian. It is interesting to see that here this original doubling is in four foot, avoiding the extension to the lower register and maintaining the middle register that is the chief pitch area of the Fugue.

Ill. 37. Measures 158-159. P651, P421, P803, Amb548, P320, PN74, Gr 1819.

Nowhere does Gr 1819 utilize four-foot doubling. For Griepenkerl, the desirable effect is expansion of register to lower bass notes. This carries with it the possibility of enlarged, richer, boomier sonorities. To double to four foot, the listed manuscripts change no register area or sonority. To double to sixteen foot caters to the sensibilities of later musicians and audiences who reach for richer and louder sound effects. Further, the notation for the four-foot doubling in such reliable manuscripts as P651 and P421, as well as in P1083 and PN74, is shown in parts: the upper note, the alto part, is notated with stems directed upwards; the lower note is the bass part with stems directed downwards. This notation does not represent “romantic” octaves: they signify part-writing. Gr 1819, on the other hand, sets down chordal pianistic octaves⎯two notes connected by one stem. Part-writing is thereby obliterated and we are catapulted into a later age and musical culture.

The extension of the bass register expands the pitch framework of the Fugue beyond its three-part limits; this framework is fractured when applied to strict contrapuntal structuring such as subject entries. It is not significantly destructive when added to a pedal point. The breakage of the three-part frame is particularly disturbing, however, to the balance of the whole movement when the contrapuntal structuring and pitch range is disturbed suddenly by octave additions late in the progress of a one-hundred-and-sixty-measure fugue. The entry of the subject in sixteen-foot doubling as late as mm. 140-146 has no structural justification since the three-part area has been established and continuously maintained throughout virtually the entire fugue.

The introduction of bass octaves in an entry of the subject close to the end of the Fugue is abrupt and unrelated to the compositional materials. Structurally, the octaves have no business being there. They are an external imposition inserted solely for superficial effect, the special token contributed by the birth of public performance to increasingly large audiences. Johann Sebastian deserves better treatment. His genius for virtuosic effect is so great that he understands when and where effective figurations for dramatic effect are appropriate. This does not signify that enhancing figurations are not to be added by the performer, such as, for instance, embellishment, cadenzas, and rhythmic applications as in double-dotting in the French Overture. However, the sudden entry of unrelated registers, introduced solely for an artificial assertion of a grandiloquent finale, causes an intolerable disproportion in the dense relationships of Bach´s fugal structure.

Octave expansion toward the end of a composition where part-writing limits have been well established is a sure way to produce stylistic bombast and pretension. No one will deny that this was a characteristic of “romantic” virtuoso performance, and one that continues currently in many quarters (101), and that this aspect contributed to turning away conscientious musicians of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries from such overblown performance applications.

But this practice of applying octaves for emphasis at the end of a fugue suited the growing nineteenth-century bent for spectacular endings. It became ingrained in Bach performance through non-inquiring repetition on the part of numerous editors of Bach and the performers who followed their editions, and it settled into habitual expectation by both performer and listener. The concept and practice of adding octaves, only toward the end or to the last subject entry in fugues, is, in itself, structurally mistaken and aesthetically disoriented when applied to Johann Sebastian Bach.

C.P.E. Bach writes of octaves in relation to the production of forte and piano:

“The low register must be avoided, the doubled tones being placed close to the right hand in such a manner that the notes of both hands adjoin, leaving no intervening space. Otherwise, the rumbling low notes will create a miserable blur”

This describes accurately the doubling of the countersubject of the fugue in its last statement and warns against the “miserable blur” that is created by “the rumbling low notes”. Emanuel gives prescriptions for discriminate octave doublings and adds:

“These octaves doublings are very good for imitations which are to be loudly performed or for the entrance of fugal subjects.” (102)

However, he warns:

“… rather than mutilate the melody of the bass, the pedal [sixteen foot] should be omitted when not all of its notes can be played by the feet, and the lowest part played solely by the left hand.”

Carl Philipp Emanuel is warning against the destruction of the linear part-writing. His prescriptions for doubling make it clear that, in the era of the early post-1750´s, doubling was associated with amplifying the volume of a part; it was, as Emanuel presents it, a device of dynamics. His description of this special kind of amplification, “Verdoppelung der Grundnoten mit der Octave”, doubling the bass notes with the octave, is identified with the character of doubling a single line, not octave playing. For the keyboard player, particularly pianists, doubling with the octave signifies chordal figure; the result is a performance of octaves in disjunct character. Emanuel warns against doubling when the notes are rapid; doubling of rapid notes becomes octaves in the later pianistic sense. When “doubling…with the octave”, as Emanuel puts it, is conceived as doubling a line or subject entry it does not convey the sense of pianistic octave style that gradually took over from the late eighteenth century onwards. For example, already in Beethoven´s Sonata Op. 2, No.3, we have proper pianistic octave passages. These are no longer conceived as “doublings with the octave.” They are unambiguous octave passages with none of the interrelated linear, contrapuntal functions that are pervasive in the contrapuntal compositions of Johann Sebastian.

Griepenkerl was, possibly, aware that he was following Emanuel´s counsel on doubling, especially “for the entrance of fugue subjects.” But danger always lies in following rules literally. The placement of such doublings in relation to the structural framework is critical in retaining the architecture of a form and enunciating the style of an era. The sudden leap into octaves at m. 140 in a very low register of the bass disturbs not only the voice leading that prepares the subject´s entry, but also the relationship of the part-writing following the low doubling of the bass register. The gap here between the register of the bass preceding the entry of the subject and that following the last note of the subject is too large to balance the framework of the three-part fugue. The fugue expands in register and in dramatic character as it progresses towards its end in a way quite unique when compared with most of Sebastian´s other fugues. However, Griepenkerl´s insertion of the single booming bass entry so late in the fugue destroys the balance of the entire structure. Besides, if this is a literal application of Emanuel´s prescription for allowable doublings, it takes no cognizance of Emanuel´s warning to the effect that “the low register must be avoided…the rumbling low notes will create a miserable blur.” Emanuel adds: “In order to practice these precepts the ear must provide constant assistance…” These precepts are written in his chapter on accompaniment, but as precepts applying to performance they apply to all similar situations in solo performance as well.

A lack of sensitivity to unbalanced gaps in register such as Emanuel describes appears in the added bass octave at mm. 155, 156 and 157. By adding the low octave pitch to the bass, Griepenkerl calls attention to the pedal point but does not reckon with the weakness created in the return of the bass to a single line two full octaves above the A3 of his added octave. The contrast between the low octave and the following single line in mm. 158/159 yields a thin, weakened sonority to the single line on any instrument. The inclusion of the original four-foot doubling in those measures provides better balance with the enlarged range of the chords in the upper part. The four-foot doubling contributes a strong support to the increase density of the successive harmonic progressions in the full chord formation. Moreover, the part-writing represented by the four-foot doubling of the bass is, in actuality, a continuation of the bass part. The three-part framework has never been altered or abandoned.

The bass part is the countersubject. A structural nicety, strengthening the conclusion of the fugue, is the simultaneous presence here of both subject and countersubject. By thinning the texture to a single part in the bass, Griepenkerl reduces the presence of the countersubject. That the bass part serves a doubling function is less important than is its collaborative role as one of three parts in the fugue. It is so primal to the conclusion of the fugue that it, alone, springs off into the penultimate measure with the brilliant single-line passage. In contrast to Griepenkerl´s abandonment of the crucial part at this crucial concluding moment, Sebastian Bach abandoned the other parts. The original continuance of the bass part proceeds into m. 160 in unbroken transition from G1 with no gaps in pitch or register. In Gr 1819, the swift passage in m. 160 emerges from the single line weakened by the preceding low bass pitch area.

Notation style reflects stylistic concept. The notation of two parts duplicating a single line conveys to the performer a doubled line, which is then conceived as linear figuration. The notation of two pitches (1, 8) on one stem signifies to the performer disjunct octaves. The difference is as great as the eras that each respectively represent. These are not synonymous concepts or functions; performance of such disparate lineament is not the same, and the aural reception is vastly different. The sensibility of a performer is finely attuned to the difference between a two-part notation and an octave notational format and their distinctive stylistic performance treatments. Octaves signify “piano” playing of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries; doubling belongs to a previous era, that of polyphony and the organ and harpsichord. To set this doubled line down as a single entity⎯the octave instead of two entities, two parts⎯is to alter the original linear concept to a disjunct chordal one, bringing the entire musical concept into the later, radically different structural and stylistic performance treatment. This type of alteration is typical of the nineteenth-century transcribers such as Liszt, d´Albert and Busoni. To substitute one for the other makes for stylistic anachronism.

Johann Sebastian wrote frequently in chords, but not keyboard octaves. The incredibly prophetic keyboard figuration in the Goldberg Variations demonstrates this far-ranging imagination in disjunct chordal passages that produce disjunct performance treatment. Variations 20 and 23, with their double thirds and double sixths, and Variation 29 with its alternating chordal figurations, are more radically prophetic of mid-to-late nineteenth century and even twentieth-century piano technique than any other music of the entire eighteenth century. But Sebastian did not write octaves: they were the sole chordal keyboard device he omitted. Octave passages were to arise from a divergent structural sense and the ongoing developments accruing to virtuoso public performance, and to the parallel expansion of the capabilities of piano action and sonorities.

It is of great interest to see that P1083, the printer´s model for Pn74, departs from P212, in mm. 158-159, adding the doubling of the entire countersubject. P1083 also conforms here to P651 and P421 and to other manuscripts. The doubling per se does not appear in Forkel´s manuscript P212. But Forkel does continue the alto part into a1 on the treble staff, in the first beat of m. 158, making for a doubling of A1 in the bass. This does not serve the purpose of an “octave” format.

Forkel apparently allowed the doubling to be added in the publication of which he was the instigator and overseer. Was he the initiator of this addition or was he influenced to add the doubling by coming upon such manuscripts as P651, P421, P803 (2), P320, and/or AmB548? To the best of my knowledge, there is no mention anywhere of Forkel´s reliance on any other manuscript other than his own, P212.

Since the doubling is present in PN74, and Griepenkerl was a student and a proclaimed disciple of Forkel, why did Griepenkerl obliterate this doubling? It conforms to P1083, the original register limits, and it is in concordance with Emanuel´s rule. It must have been approved by Griepenkerl´s teacher not only in its appearance in the first publication of 1802, but also in its continuous unchanging form in the two subsequent publications of Kühnel and Peters, to which there is no record of any objection by the generally assertive Forkel on such matters.

A complementary question: Why substract the four-foot doubling of PN74 and add the sixteen-foot doubling in mm. 140-146? Forkel died one year previous to the publication of Gr 1819. It is reasonable to assume that Griepenkerl was in close touch with Forkel in his last year(s) and that they would have had communication regarding the chief interests of their professional lives. Therefore one must also wonder who was responsible for the subject´s “sixteen-foot” doubling at m. 140. Could this have been a later idea of Forkel, or is it a reflection of Griepenkerl´s subsurface pianistic/romantic leanings? And since Griepenkerl himself calls attention to his indebtedness to Forkel, and to Carl Philipp Emanuel´s teachings in the Versuch, what justification can posterity fashion to account for his deliberate alterations from PN74, and the earlier eighteenth-century tradition that was repeatedly reflected unambiguously and unanimously in the most reliable manuscripts? The significance for posterity of Griepenkerl´s alterations and additions becomes clear when one finds them in urtext editions.

III.3.5. Alterations in Bach-Gesellschaft, Bischoff, Henle
The urtext editions of the B-G (1890), Bischoff (1880/88) and Henle (1969/70), alter the separate part notation of the sources to octave notation. Since BG and Bischoff are modeled after P421, and Henle after P651, where the part-writing in both manuscripts is unambiguous, why have these editors made such an alteration from the undisputed reliability of these sources? The modern justification for altering notation is often ascribed either to the mechanical convenience of the early printing press or to a modernization for the contemporary eye. But the eye does not function in isolation; the brain interprets the visual image. Gr 1819, the BG, Bischoff and Henle present what a modern musician interprets as octaves. The manuscript sources present doubling of the inverted countersubject, whereas in the former the bass part doubling is placed on a single vertical stem.

Have these urtext editions deliberately departed from their manuscript sources, have they followed Gr 1819, which is hardly a primary source, or has Griepenkerl´s style of modernization become so ingrained as to influence editors of urtext editions? It is likely that the editors regarded their alteration simply as a modernization of notation. But they missed the crucial point⎯the continuance of a doubled part and the stylistic, structural and performance image implicit in the patterning of notation in the era of Johan Sebastian.

Ill. 38. Measures 158-161 a) Henle, BG, Bischoff; b) P652, P421, P320, AmB548.

In Gr 1819, the outer limits of the Fugue are dilated suddenly from m. 91 onwards. The precedent of expanding the framework of a composition well beyond its own original register boundaries being provided by Gr 1819, the transcribers of the late nineteenth century, such as Busoni, Liszt, von Bülow, etc., who proceed in like manner, can justify a claim to “authentic” lineage from Griepenkerl and the antecedents he claims.

Objections to the late nineteenth-century style of Bach transcription have been one of the characterizing precepts of twentieth-century scholarship. The registration potentialities of the organ of Sebastian´s time, and studies of the organ works confirm that doubling per se is stylistically appropriate in performance. But instrumental potentialities do not automatically justify license; doubling must conform to the individual context and structural framework of each composition. Applied as a means of external showy effect as it often is, even today, inflated octave treatment constitutes not only a demonstration of deplorable taste, but also a deformation of Bach´s architecture. Griepenkerl´s musical orientation by 1819 embraced a virtuoso display of not only “affect” but also effect for public performance. The style belongs to his era and not to that of Johann Sebastian.

Most nineteenth-century and numerous twentieth-century editors were deeply responsive to Griepenkerl´s aesthetic goals and performance indications. It will also be seen how little attention was given to his well-meaning explanations expounded in his Bemerkungen, which on the whole are more related to Bach´s era than to his indications in the music score.

Summary
Why does Griepenkerl choose to ignore his model, PN74? Where is the precedent for his textual changes? If Forkel´s “way of playing and teaching” was unalterably etched in his memory, had Forkel slipped into these textual changes from the original publication that was based on his own manuscript, and supervised by him? Is Griepenkerl, then, reproducing Forkel´s later thoughts on the note-text; is he accurate in doing so? Or are these his own?

Such questions are, more likely than not, unanswerable. Yet questions open areas of thought that otherwise may remain close. It is clear that upon investigation of the lineage that Griepenkerl so reverently acknowledges, significant textual changes that had not existed previously were introduced into the 1819 edition. Therefore, the claim on the title page and all that it implies in terms of authenticity does not apply.

One must, with all due respect for his outstanding contributions to the cause of Johann Sebastian, evaluate Griepenkerl´s opinions, textual alterations, and performance recommendations for what they are rather than on the basis of his claims to lineage. Although some of the principles he enunciates in his Bemerkungen coincide with those expounded by Carl Philip Emanuel in his Versuch, I cannot believe that Griepenkerl´s applications emanate from Johann Sebastian, preserved, uninfluenced, and untrammeled since Sebastian´s death. The span of nigh on a century of developments in fundamentally new concepts of form and structure, sonorities, instruments, performance techniques, and stylistic approaches hardly conveys confidence in the stylistic accuracy of the editing of Gr 1819. I can believe that Forkel, living most of his life, until 1818, within the established Weltanschauung of the romantic movement and its practices, was influenced by this ever-strengthening aesthetic. Griepenkerl was rooted even more strongly in this aesthetic. Detonated by Rousseau, intensified by Goethe, followed in all manner of thought, literature, and music, it inflamed the Western European world of the late eighteenth century and led to new worlds of creativity and expression. The evidence that a transmission of this kind of stylistic aesthetic took place is contained throughout Griepenkerl´s edition of 1819.

With the thinning of the fugue´s countersubject to a single line following the deep low bass, the countersubject is so weakened that the focus on the simultaneous structuring of subject and countersubject is lost. It is shifted to the chords in the treble clef⎯the right hand⎯, the left hand assuming a secondary role, related more to an accompaniment than to a chief motive in the fugue. The original countersubject, doubled in the original version according to all the listed manuscripts, is given equal status in the final statement with the subject. Griepenkerl withdraws this equal status.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]See the general Introduction for the book´s index.

[2] Most importantly, Leisinger/Wiener Urtext Edition, and Wolf/Urtext of the Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Bärenreiter. See Bibliography.

[3]See, for example, ‘Authenticity’, in The Boston Conversazioni (Boston University Press 1994), and ‘Musical Authenticity – Is it a Legitimate Offspring of Janus?’, in Interaction, Journal of the Tureck Bach Research Foundation (1998: 54-93).

[4]Adolf Bernhard Marx, ‘Tradition und Prüfung.’, in Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung 50, 10 (March 8, 1848).

[5]Tureck, ‘Authenticity’: 5.

[6] Dr. Tureck´s essay typing date was December 28, 1992.

[7]See the commentary on Scheibe in the chapter on the Rust variant, p. 59.

[8]See also the chapter on the Rust variant, Endnote 103.

[9]Spitta, The Life of Bach, Vol. III, p. 291.

[10]“False, feigned or contrived music”. “In modern usage, the term musica ficta is often loosely applied to all unnotated inflections inferred from the context, for editorial or ‘performers'’ accidentals rather than notated ones (whether properly recta or ficta). Editors usually place accidentals that they have supplied, on behalf of performers, above the affected note or in brackets or small type, to distinguish them from those having manuscript authority. ” Margaret Bent and Alexander Silbiger. "Musica ficta." In Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/19406 (accessed August 26, 2012).

[11]“A system of tuning keyboard instruments, used from c.1570 into the 19th century and revived in the 20th, in which each whole tone is half the size (the ‘mean’) of a pure 3rd. Most 3rds are pure, much better in tune than in equal temperament, and the 5ths and 4ths are only slightly worse than in equal temperament.” Montagu, Jeremy. "Mean-tone temperament." In The Oxford Companion to Music, edited by Alison Latham. Oxford Music Online, http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t114/e4312 (accessed August 26, 2012).

[12]See also section II of the chapter on the Rust Variant, “Bach´s Early Composing Procedures in Relation to BWV903a.”

[13]Hugh Gough (Heptonstall, Yorkshire, England, 1916-New York City, 1997), “earned a degree in economics at University College in London in 1937. During his student years, he was attracted to the nascent early-music world and took clavichord lessons from Arnold Dolmetsch, the pioneering musicologist and instrument builder. With guidance from Dolmetsch, he built his first clavichord in 1932 and his first harpsichord in 1935.” “Hugh Gough, 81, an Instrument Maker”. Obituary. New York Times, April 20, 1997 (accessed on August 2nd, 2012)