Introduction

A linking thread that runs through this chapter was suggested by a radio program. A positive answer to this comes from the pleasing experience of repeatedly hearing well-informed musicians use new, cleaned-up editions of familiar repertoire that resolve chronic old problems of misprinted notes, dynamics, tempi, or even tempo relationships. Bach's Gigue relates directly, if surprisingly, "La Soiree dans Grenade" from Debussy's Estampes of 1903. The printed rhythms and are audibly snapped towards the values and, while is reciprocally stressed towards., thereby completing a sort of rhythmic notational circle. Mayerl's light-fingered idiom is still very much living memory, through many recordings and radio broadcasts. According to documentary evidence and contemporary scholarship, the different rhythmic values in these bars should probably be assimilated to the same sounding value". Besides the unwritten rhythmic issues discussed above, many scores show passages where a composer clearly expects us to use common sense rather than play from the page with deadening literality.