My goal today is to play it straight through. Almost there, but I had to turn down the tempo quite a bit. Rhythm is definitely my musical weakness; I can play expressively, I can play technically. But I speed up and slow down like crazy.
Especially in a piece like this, which starts out so slowly and then suddenly explodes. And I rush the ending even more for some reason, probably because I like the ending so much. So today I broke out the ol' metronome for the recording. I've been practicing with this metronome since grade school - it's one of those ancient pyramid ones, with a spring you have to wind and a lever with a weight. It's very satisfying, but a little unreliable at especially slow tempos.
By the way, this piece is in 12/8 time, which is odd. The pulse is an eighth note, and there are 12 of them per measure. By arranging the bars a little you could rewrite it in 3/4, a much more normal time signature. That suggests to me that Bach had a point to make here, and I think the point is one of motion. Forward progress unending! And that means that once things really get moving, you don't get to pause and catch your breath until the end. Getting through with no mistakes (which I did exactly once tonight) feels like a real accomplishment in that case!
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