Margaret Mikulska wrote:

>Walter Meyer wrote concerning Bacewicz:
>
>>I assume the composer's name is coincidental and not a German/Slavic
>>version of "Violason" from "Bratsche" (viola) and "wicz" (a Slavic proper
>>name suffix corresponding to our "son")!
>
>It has nothing to do with Bratsche.  And there is no "r" in Bacewicz.
>Besides, surely you know that Bratsche comes from "[viola da] braccio".

I no longer have the post to which I was addressing myself.  Did I really
read an "r" in the name of a composer new to me, where none existed, or
was I accepting at face value an incorrect spelling? If the former, my
apologies.

And yes, I knew of the origin of "Bratsche".  I couldn't resist, however,
commenting on the fortuitious similarity between the name of a composer
(which it turns out had either been misread by me or been misspelled by
somebody else) and that of the instrument for which he had composed.

Walter Meyer