Відео

If it were D minor ascending, yes. But it is D minor descending, so B flat makes sense according to music theory. B natural could be worth trying: just set up a string orchestra, conduct it and see how it sounds.

Good questions. In the the worst case off-tune. In the best case the harpsichord was in historical tune and the violins in modern tune. Or the other way round. What about the other strings? What do the Baroque musicians here say?

Thanks for the question. I have a few thoughts: 1. To answer your question directly, my harpsichord is probably voiced on the lighter end, but I don't think it's atypically light; just about every harpsichord I have played that has been voiced in bird quill, as well as every carefully built copy of a historical clavichord, has been reasonable enough to use "early" fingerings on. I haven't had the chance to play on many historical organs, but the ones I've tried have tended to be light enough to use paired fingerings. Of course, I can't say for sure that there aren't a few examples of historical organs where early fingerings would prove impractical to play at speed. (That said, the new Bärenreiter edition of the Sweelinck keyboard variations argues that the works were likely intended for primarily for pedagogical use on clavichord, so it's possible that some of the more virtuosic passages were not meant to flow as well on a heavily-voiced harpsichord or organ.) 2. Key dip, width, length and spacing are, of course, important as well. On some virginals and clavichords, use of any other fingering would actually be more cumbersome. Thus, key weight is only one of many factors to think about when considering the ergonomics of a keyboard instrument. More weight might make early fingerings a bit more tricky, but shorter keys might make modern fingerings impractical! 3. Early "thumb-avoidant" fingerings are, of course, not to be thought of as a rule but as part of a general, pragmatic framework for fingering. One doesn't have to choose between rigidly adhering entirely to early fingerings or not at all. If thumb-avoidant fingering is too awkward in a given spot, it probably is. There are spots in early Baroque repertoire where I doubt anyone would have rigidly adhered to a thumb-avoidant early fingering. By the same token, even where thumb-avoidant fingering is not generally used throughout, it still might be applicable to certain parts of a larger work. There are definitely passages even in 18th-century music where thumb-avoidant fingerings still have merit. While Forkel describes Bach as using a more modern, less thumb-avoidant style of fingering, examples such as BWV 994 suggest that an emphasis on using the "good" fingers in the right places for the sake of metrical accents, etc. is still important when it comes to late Baroque and early Classical repertoire. Is it reasonable to make compromises on a modern instrument? Of course. There's a musical purpose to use historical fingerings on historical instruments; I use early fingerings not because I think I should to be historically "correct" but because I do find value in using them on the instruments I play. I sometimes use "early" fingerings in Bach, and sometimes more "modern" fingerings for Byrd. On a modern instrument, however, the trouble may be more than it's worth. That said, difficulty with early fingerings is another compromise that must be made when playing historical repertoire on modern instruments. On a modern instrument, it's not that one no longer must bear the "responsibility" of using early fingerings but, rather, that one loses the "privilege" of doing so.

It's good that you're thinking about these things. Many of your colleagues are not. I'm surprised that we're now into May (with many recording products now back in stock and plenty of time to familiarize oneself with videoconferencing tools), and many students and teachers still don't have a very basic mic for their online lessons. A more general rant: I feel as if the adoption of tech in teaching music (especially in classical music) is long past its due. If you consider how much time and money serious/pre-professional students and their teachers are already expected to invest in lessons (e.g., lesson fees, travel time, expensive editions, practice time, instruments, instrument maintenance), from an economic perspective it doesn't altogether seem that much to ask students and teachers to make a one-time tech investment of even a thousand dollars to make all future lessons much more productive. Of course, while nice, a thousand dollars (at least on the student end) isn't all that necessary, but right now it seems like many students are hesitant to buy even a hundred-dollar USB mic. I get that many students are strapped for cash, but the same folks often don't hesitate to buy a $50-100 urtext edition or spend $100+ per lesson; I'm not saying that a hundred dollars should feel like a drop in the bucket, but studying and teaching music at a high level is expensive, and tech is one of the more reasonable expenses at that. Tech is somehow feared/misunderstood and thus devalued among many classical musicians. "Gearing up" is often belittled as an "amateurish" activity (with the only purpose to make bad vanity recordings), as if being able to play well makes basic tech competency unnecessary. Advanced lessons are all about subtlety, and yet a basic tool that would allow us to hear instrument audio much more effectively is often ignored, with students and teachers told to "make do" with what they have. Hugh Sung's "advanced" setup ( ua-cam.com/video/MSdiBVFGXQ8/v-deo.html ) might seem like a lot, but if musicians were as serious about having basic "decent" recording equipment as they should have, they'd already have most of the pieces for the setup in the first place. If more musicians had a habit of getting basic recording equipment, the current situation would be much less dire for many students and teachers. When done right, online lessons can provide effective, real-time pedagogy on par with in-person lessons. Online lessons are not the same as in-person lessons, but in-person lessons are not the same as online lessons, either; there are advantages to each, with in-person lessons not strictly (if at all) "superior."

Thanks! Yes, all video is original.

I decided to be more restrained with the LH, both to avoid overdoing things (keep the passage moving since he RH has already done a lot of pushing and pulling) and to make the notes more accurate. That said, even without the "bone fide" historical fingerings, you can still try your best to create similar articulation and expression. I sometimes try to work in two-note pairs into the articulation, even when not strictly using a "historical" fingering (though some musicologists warn against reading into the fingering too much). Some of of the most expressive harpsichordists are rather restrained with their "large scale" timings and communicate a lot with subtle differences in articulation and microtiming. In any case, learning the historical fingerings carries equal parts importance in terms of (a) getting a better understanding of the context of the music, (b) broadening the articulative capabilities of your fingers, (c) using said fingerings in performance to achieve an effect. Needless to say, you can still benefit from (a) and (b) by trying out alternative, historically-inspired fingerings even if you end up using a modern "hybrid" fingering in performance. I have to say, though, that using the paired fingerings really bailed me out in a few late-Baroque or early-Classical context in which there were no other options. Learning to "connect" the fingers without the support of the thumb is kind of a lost art these days but well worth picking up.