On Apr 30, 2012, at 6:31 AM, David van Ooijen wrote: > There is a general consensus among musicians that Bach never > really understood their instrument, because however good his music for > other instruments, it's always unplayable on their own instrument.
>From "Letter from an able Musikant Abroad," 1737: "Since he judges according to his own fingers, his pieces are extremely hard to play; or he demands that singers and instrumentalists should be able to do with their throats and instruments whatever he can play on the clavier. But this is impossible." The "Letter" was published anonymously and did not name its "most eminent" subject, who would be "the admiration of whole nations" if not for the faults set out the "Letter," but everyone knew he was describing Bach (which is not surprising) and that Johann Adolph Scheibe was the author (which surprises me). Pretty much any time you hear that "Bach was criticized for..." or "Bach's music was thought to be..." followed by something derogatory, this letter is the source. -- To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
