Pedants, though, might have thought his use of sky-rocketing scales, double-tonguing and '
bebung' effects (and changing instruments within movements) as somewhat excessive and too flashy.
Most of Bach's keyboard output is 'instrument neutral', meaning that it can be played on any available type of keyboard instrument: harpsichord, clavichord, fortepiano, or organ; but some pieces call for specific instruments either explicitly (the organ sonatas of Wq 70, or the "Bogenclavier" sonata, Wq 65/48) or implicitly (pieces that call for
Bebung and other clavichord-specific techniques).
Thus the challenge is not so much to produce yet a nother Ninth, this time more in tune with HIP, but rather to appreciate Carl Philipp Emanuel Bach's
Bebung, Clementi's legato, and portamento in Louis Spohr's Fifth, not to mention the tempo rubato of Willem Mengelberg's Mahler.
(27) An intriguing aspect of her approach to piano technique is that her understanding of the piano action is strongly determined by the need for illusion: "Sometimes [the player] presses the key firmly after it has been played in order to prolong its vibration, occasionally striking [the key again]." (28) Most likely she refers to what was known in German-speaking countries as
Bebung. A famous example of this can be found in the third movement of Beethoven's Piano Sonata op.
Both work well (Simmonds employs
bebung where Butt uses the organ tremulant!), pointing up different qualities in the music.
The force of striking the key doesn't any longer necessarily have anything to do with loudness, but instead can--according to the programming--bring about tone-color alterations, or degrees of amplitude and frequency modulation; or a note may begin at some point to glide, responding to the key pressure, more or less rapidly, like the
Bebung on clavichords in the Baroque.
Christopher Hogwood presents a survey of late eighteenth-century works prescribing the use of
Bebung, the vibrato possible on the clavichord alone among keyboard instruments, and the related portato or Tragen der Tone.
But when this sign was written over a single note rather than a group of notes it signified the Bebung (repeated pressure made without lifting the key, which affects the steadiness of pitch of the note).(29) Yet five years after the publication of C.
Lohlein also employed dots under a slur over a single note to indicate vibrato (Bebung) of he left hand - a violinists counterpart to C.