Justin,

Which statement do you find hard to believe? that the WTC was composed for any keyboard or that one person thinks it sounds best on the organ. WR did say, "Personally, I think many, maybe most, sound best on the organ," but that obviously is his opinion. FWIW, I agree, many of them do sound best on the organ, I don't necessarily go with "most." I've played the Eb prelude from book 1 on an organ and it worked quite well.

I can't say that I've ever seen this edition. It's not the original Tovey, which Sir Donald edited himself. It is rather old and probably not available at all any longer. It is marked, from the press:

Two Book
25/- paper covers
35/- cloth boards

Correct me, if I'm mistaken but the marking are those of the shilling, yes?

wr, is quite right, jnod. As I've just written elsewhere here, the WTC was not written exclusively AT the harpsichord and as wr states (again correctly) it is not written FOR any particular instrument (as is much of Bach's keyboard oeuvre).

I have an earlier ABRSM edition (books I and II), "edited by Donald Francis Tovey, Fingered by Harold Samuel" (1924). It looks like a 1970's reprint to me (especially considering the price tag), but 1924 is the only date. I didn't buy it - it came to me in a pile of scores from a fellow teacher who died.

And yes, /- is shillings. Also written as 25s.

That's the one. Mine is a 1951 reprint.

What about Breitkopf's Mugellini edition? My teacher gave it to me as a present but I have not looked through it much (yet).

I think I misread: the point is not that WTC was written for organ just that organ is one instrument on which it can be played. Yes?

For that matter I've heard the WTC I D minor P&F performed by a Jamaican steel drum orchestra. Sounded great!!

We 'ancient ones' remember Bach on the Moog synthesizer. I believe it has been stated in some sources that Bach sounds good on practically every medium while other composers are not as transcribable (Chopin, for instance)and the keyboards works can be played on harpsichord, clavichord, organ, piano, etc., and as Bach gave very few, if any, phrasing, fingering, dynamic, one must go by the general Baroque indications--perhaps concertato style for some--and other prevailing stylistic performance practices of the time.

Breitkopf & Hartel publish the Bach Gesellschaft which seems to be the 'URTEXT' and there are no editorial markings--just the notes as transcribed from Bach's manuscripts. One might secure a copy of those for comparison to edited versions to ascertain accuracy of notation and then follow whatever editorial markings he/she chooses.

Ralph

No argument that Bach wrote the WTC without a specific instrument in mind, but IMO, NOT the organ. In my experience as an organist, very few of the fugues work well on the organ, and even less of the preludes (Eb minor could be an exception) make any sense at all on the organ. The C minor or the C# major preludes to name two examples?

Bach wrote a large amount of music specifically intended for the organ, and they could not possibly be played as written for any other instrument. OTH, the WTC is clearly conceived for two hands alone.

Interestingly, many of Bach's north German predecessors wrote music that could be played without pedals (some Lutheran churches at the time could not afford an organ with a full and separate pedal division), but the layout of the music is such that if the pedals were available, the music was easily adapted. I have several volumes of this music -some of it very fine- in my library.

Of course one could claim that Bach might have been happy for organists without pedals (or pedal technique) to play the fugues of his WTC on the organ, but their layout is so radically different from the fugues intended for organ.

Yes.. well I was, but today I hurt my wrist during P.E. at school, so I decided to withdraw from performing tomorrow. My hand should be better soon, but I think it'll be too sore to perform in the Bach Festival tomorrow.
I'll still be working on this piece once my hand heals though, because I'm going to play it for Certificate of Merit.

-Will

Yes.

I wonder, has anyone orchestrated all of them? It seems likely. I know that Mozart arranged some for strings. When I play through them, I often think about how various passages would sound in various orchestrations. Wind quintets come to mind a lot.

I still have my copy of "Switched-on-Bach" I and II! The jacket of the first volume was slightly chewed up by my late cat but otherwise it still sounds great in that weird 1970s way. I also have "Switched-off Bach" which was a collection of accoustic recordings of Carlos's renditions. Some nice stuff in there - Pablo Cassals, Glenn Gould etc....etc... again, greats of the 70s.

Keep us posted on your Bach articulation journey, if you wish, Will. At least keep travelling.