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Digression: BWV 873/1


For a readily-available example of the same work transmitted in different textual traditions with different approaches small-notes versus squiggle ornaments, see BWV 873/1, the C# minor prelude of WTC book II.  The NBA prints two versions of the whole of Book II:  one termed that of the Londoner Originalhandschrift (so-called because the source for it closest to Bach is an incomplete manuscript now in the British Librarya score that, inconveniently for me, does not include BWV 873), and one reflected in copies prepared by Bachs son-in-law and student Johann Christoph Altnickol (P430 and P402, scores from much many others were subsequently).  In the London line of tradition, the notational default for an appoggiatura is the c-shaped hook.  In five instances a hook would not work, so Bach (one presumes, originally) was compelled to use a small-note ornament:  when the ornament is a leap (bb. 6, 7, 38, 44), and when the ornamental tone is not diatonic (b. 36).  Altnickol tends toward the small-notes ornaments almost all the time (particularly as BWV 873 is transmitted in P430), and this is taken up in subsequent copies descending from his source.