It is often mentioned
that inegale play was particularly French, but I'm not too sure about
that.
It is a least interesting that Spanish writers are among the first to deal with
that topic,
f.e. Tomàs de Santa Maria.
Perhaps, the French put an extra stress on it, but inegale
actually was the old-fashioned heavy vs. light stroke thing.
Stroke of what ? ;-))
There are two concepts with similar features that are normally not confused,
especially
not by the French theorists: quantitas intrinseca ("good" and "bad" notes /times) and
inégalité.
Let's have a look on a C (4/4) bar.
We have 4 crotchets, whereof the 1 is the "best", 3 also good, 2 and 4
(equally?) bad.
(Exceptions appear through dissonances, irregular melodic peaks and other
events.)
The quantitas intrinseca says that 1 and 3 will be longer than 2 and 4, but
WITHIN their
measure.
If we subdivide the crotchets to quavers, all the even numbered ones are "bad".
The inégalité only appears on the level of the semiquavers (=1/4 beat in a dual
measure)
, if there are several of them and
if they move more or less stepwise.
best wishes
Bernd
common practise, that I'm aware of, is JJ Quantz (Versuch xi 12). So
Bach is well within he scope IMHO.
Indeed, and he often was so diligent as to write out the inégalité.
best wishes
Bernd
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