Johannes Gebauer responded to a question by dhbailey by writing:
Not sure how the candles change the sound...
prompting dhbailey to rejoin
I'm sure the excessive carbon monoxide in the air from all that
combustion taking place couldn't have been too good for the singers.
I'll note that besides the carbon monoxide from incomplete combustion,
there would also have been particulates (smoke), and thermal updrafts
created by the heat of the burning candles. Further affects on the
sound would have been the temperature of the space at the time of the
performance.
I took organ lessons for a time while in college, and had two teachers,
both of whom proposed that a similar question should be asked in
relation to any performance issue. The questions were subtly different,
however. Where on proposed that questions about performance of a work
should be answered by asking some form of "What did the composer do?",
the other suggested that the more apt question would be "What would the
composer do if he were playing the work on this organ today?"
Personally, I was persuaded that the latter is the more useful question.
Whatever forces Bach may have had at his disposal, there is no place
today where the same forces can be duplicated, and I submit that it is
rather more useful to ask not "Did Bach perform this with one voice on a
part", but "Given the forces available here, how would he have performed
the work?" To be sure, the answer to the second question is no easier
than the first, and debates about the answer are apt to be just as
heated as this thread has been.
ns
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