Probstück 3 · English translation

Third Probstück Annotations §. 1. It is easy to play the thorough bass well, if there are no more figures than in this example. Alas! How happy some will be, that there are so few figures here. To admit the truth, I have to allow the people to catch their breath now and then – otherwise, they would get too upset. But it could well be, that considering the advantage we now think to have, since we no longer accept any apprentices in this class, but only seniors, one or the other signature would not have been written so precisely, but deliberately omitted, so that the player too sharpens his own judgement and learns to walk without a stick. §. 2. Besides, I can say that in the present piece particular attention has been paid to the so useful training of a good order of moving fingers. In this particular case one cannot be surprised enough about the nasty stumbling of the apprentices, especially when the bass moves downwards a lot. This only stems from the fact that their fingers neither keep a certain order nor have indicated ways. Every master (the one who understands) makes his own thing out of it and gives three or four rules by which the pupil should learn which fingers to use up- and downwards in both hands. This all is certainly good and may have as much use as the rules of a skilled calligrapher. However, that notwithstanding, with one's own understanding increasing, one does not care at all. But there are only few, who do not choose their own hand for writing, which often is not the same as the one of the master. It is the same with the application on the clavier. As many there are playing, as many ways of the so-called application one will find. One plays with four fingers, the other one with five and some play almost as fast with only two fingers. There is nothing about it, as long as one chooses a certain guideline and sticks to it. But that is it: Most are so full of doubts and unfirm about this thing, that they need a quarter of an hour before they come to terms with themselves. Therefore, I do not recommend any specific application, but I demand that one accustoms himself to only one way firmly and steadily through industrious exercise. But so that it will fit in every case: Which requires thinking. It only remains to observe that in the very common scales, one plays upwards in the right hand with the ring and middle finger and uses middle and index for going down. The left hand, however, makes use of the index and the thumb upwards and downwards of the index and middle finger in an alternating way. I am saying that this is the common way and teaching, but it is suitable in only very few cases. §. 3. In the tenth and 11th measure the right hand plays on the break, which gives a pleasant arpeggiation. In b. 17 it will be turned upside down. Here, the bass is played at first and then the right hand syncopates with the figures and chords in the previous way. That way all crotchets followed by semiquavers are being treated: §. 4. It is to be noted, that all arpeggiations of that kind sound way more pleasant, the more distant the intervals are from each other: they must never get smaller than a fourth. The thirds, especially in the right hand, sound too narrow and can be used almost never; so when in the 26th measure a B major is placed one must not leap upwards from the third or octave, but only from the fifth into the third (i.e. in sixths).