Thanh-Tam Le wrote:

>An elementary (not at all, actually) question which possibly was asked
>before in the thread: should a repeat be played the same way as it was
>played the first time?

The big shapes, yes, the overall structure, direction, climaxes, etc.  But
it's impossible to play *exactly* the same both times, so why try.  You get
a second shot, why not give a little more nuance to that run the second
time round.  Some of that can be planned, some will just happen
sponteneously.  Also, certain things will be different the second time
because you're going different places.

In Bach, and baroque music, my take on it, which may be mistaken, is
that the repeat can be used to add ornaments and improvisations that you
don't do the first time.

>Of course, I have some opinions about that as a performer, but hopefully
>it can shed some new light on the reflection.  It might seem immaterial to
>the current debate, but I doubt it.

Quite the contrary, it has a lot to do with it.  It's one of the nice
things about repeats, you get to enjoy it twice.

David Runnion