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Experiment 4

How to play a dotted rhythm of Contrapunctus6

Cp.6, subtitled as ゛stylo Francese゛ (french style) is often talked about from
a view of performing way, not simply viewed as a dotted rhythm music.

Needless to see the printed sheet music, this piece includes both the
variant theme with dotted rhythm and the diminished theme with its time
value halved, that is to say, the dotted rhythms of quarter notes and eighth
notes are jammed in.


Beginning of Cp.6

Well, it is simply hard to play.

Would-be performers in Baroque days used to assimilate a longer rhythm to
a shorter in the case that rhythms with different time value are mixed
together in a piece.



Please note the theme with dotted rhythm in bass.

Indeed, a lot of works titled "French overture゛employ dotted rhythms with
different time value, so rhythmic assimilation is much help to you when
playing them. BGM now you are listening is arranged in consideration of
rhythmic assimilation. BGM in Cp.6 will tell you the difference.

Getting back to the original purpose, however, true charm of this piece was
supposed to be a tangle that the theme and half diminished theme get into.
Then, varying the original theme may ruin the most attractive character
and lead to blur the diminished form.

Yet,
let's take a closer look at the theme and diminished theme. Does the
diminished form exactly appear as the diminished replica to the theme?



Well, it is not. If it were precise diminished form, sixteenth notes would
become a dotted rhythm shown in blue in the above music. With this, three
kinds of dotted rhythms in terms of time value will be born, and you will
definitely have a difficulty playing it, besides, hearing it could be unbearable.
As far as this treatment of diminished theme concerns, Bach may have put
an emphasis on the beauty of music itself rather than contrapuntal skill.

Then, let's examine the following examples. Which performance do you think
is more beautiful, to play as it is written or to assimilate with dotted rhythm
of eighth notes? Bar 3 gives you a good example.



The music on the left is the straight form while the right is the assimilation
of rhythms. ゛f゛in soprano and ゛e゛in bass on the left are bumped while ゛g゛
in soprano and ゛e゛in bass on the right are accorded, looking trimmed up.
Similar examples can be seen everywhere in this piece, but this rhythmic
assimilation do not cause any disturbance.

Bar 65 is another example that you cannot play smoothly.



The above music shows soprano and alto at bar 65. Straight interpretation
reads that the same notes in blue are heard in a row. But, by the rhythmic
assimilation, one note can be gotten rid of.

In these circumstances, Cp.6 should be dominated by eighth note's dotted
rhythm so that the music sounds better and is played easier.

Similar problems are arisen in Cp.7.

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