Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Double-dotting in Bach

Specifically in the Bach c minor Partita no 2: I need a double-dotting lesson. If all the leading tones are shortened proportionally: 16th's would be 32nd's, 32nd's to 64th's. All would be half value. However, some shorten the 1st measure 16th to a 64th, so all the leading tones become equally-short: all 64th's.

It seems that some double-dotters (in the Sinfonia) change 32nd's to 64th's, with inscrutable exceptions. More harpsichord and clavichord players seem to double-dot. Schiff double-dots. Landowska doesn't. Tureck doesn't. Kirkpatrick I think, does shorten 32nd's to 64th's, but he doesn't shorten the 1st 16th after the 2nd beat rest in the first measure. Richard Troeger (clavichord), who wrote a book on Bach performance (which I am not going to buy), seems to make all the leading tones 64th's, or else he does change the 1st 16th to a 64th, but leaves the next 32nd alone, unmodifed. The rule seems to be, whatever you can get away with.

Who has what preference? (You need not say why.)

The dot in baroque music notation is a more flexible designation than it became later in music history. That's a very vague one-sentence observation, but it might steer you in a helpful direction toward some subjective artistic choices on your part. "Whatever you can get away with" casts such choices in a dismal light: I'd say go ahead and experiment with some double-dotting if you think it sounds lively in the opening bars of this Partita, if you can do so on your piano, and if your technique is responsive enough. This isn't really the world of formulas, or of math. (And truth be told, the differences are tiny.)

Here's a short passage from Robert Donington's respected Interpretation of Early Music (1977 edition): "When the dotted notes are persistent enough to dominate the rhythm; or form a distinct rhythmic figure or formula; or more generally would sound sluggish if taken literally: then it was the convention to shorten them (Fr. pointer) by lengthening the dot, thereby delaying and shortening the note after the dot. This is often called 'double-dotting'; but an exacter term is 'over-dotting'."

I think that's pretty near the truth. In Baroque times, and earlier, adding a dot to one note and an extra tail to the note after it simply meant "make the first note longer and the second shorter": how much longer or shorter would depend on the context and on the taste of the performer. There was no rule about mathematically double dotting, nor of shortening all tones in the same proportion.

In this particular example, I prefer everything to be "over-dotted", without actually counting to see if I'm doing exact 32nds, 64ths or whatever. As, for instance, here:

Whatever you can do proficiently, and whatever sounds good to your taste. Which is more or less what CPE Bach said about ornaments and interpretation of that time in general.

It's a tradition in Baroque and very early Classical to double dot a single dotted passage.
Same with reading a doted quaver followed by a semiquaver as a crotchet triplet followed by a triplet if the accompaniment is in triplets.

The tradition ends about in the early bit of Haydn's life.

Are you learning for audition, exam or competition purpose?

If not, try to experiment your own to find your own favourite, incl. no double dot, full doouble dot, selectively having some double dot but not all.

In a competition, would it be more prudent not to double-dot?

This came up in SiFi's thread on Lindsay Garritson's competition. I doubt her failure to advance was due to disagreement with her interpretation of the Grave in the Sinfonia.

I apologize for not looking back to the 2013 discussion of double-dotting in the Sinfonia of the Bach c minor Partita no. 2. Most were against it, or only tepidly in favor of it. Angela Hewitt's video strongly endorsed double-dotting.

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/2200648/Bach_Partita_c_minor_Sinfonia_.html

Actually, I think it is safer to double dot for an exam or competition as it is the accepted method these days.

I've been thinking about double-dotting a lot, in the context of Goldberg Variation 16 (the "French Overture" variation). I originally learned it as written (despite my teacher's strong recommendation to double-dot); then, as I took it up to speed, I began to feel something was missing. Listening carefully to a few recordings, I found that double-dotting was just the beginning of the rhythmic changes people make: runs are also started late and then rushed, and notes are often triple-dotted. It's more of an overall feel, a kind of stately, exaggerated energy, than a precise reworking of rhythmic values. It makes the piece bristle. And it makes a big difference.

-J

For an exam or competition it's good to show:

- that you are conversant with historically informed performance practices, and
- that you have come to a conscious, consistent decision regarding rhythmic alterations, ornaments and other important aspects of performance style.

The essential thing is that your performance is musically convincing. Whatever decisions you make regarding such points of style, there will be some people who consider you to be right and others who consider you to be wrong. Two judges may disagree. I've worked with different renowned Baroque specialists who had diametrically opposed views on appogiaturas, for instance.

In an exam you may be called on to justify your interpretive choices. You'll probably get more points if you say something like "I follow the advice of C.P.E. Bach" or even "That's the way I feel it in my bones" than if you say "Angela Hewitt does it that way".