BWV 1034--comparison of rhetorical content of 2 performances

I actually did this exercise a while ago but have been too awed and intimidated by Asuncion's erudite TPA-clinching response to post until now.

So I will not even try to come up to that standard--just going to list my comments informally.

1.  Thanks for the assignment, which compelled me to undergo a crash course on the elements of rhetoric as applied to music in baroque period.  (Yes, how DID I get this far in my baroque studies without having done that??)

2. NOT going to analyze in detail the Inventio/Dispositio.  

3. My understanding of the affect of the movements did not necessarily agree with Asuncion's, especially the slow movements--see below.

4. Cello/hps version [c/h] vs. gamba/theorbo/guitar version [g/t/g].  I know we weren't supposed to comment on which we "liked" better per se, but I'll just mention that I expected to like the g/t/g version better going in, and it didn't turn out that way.  The more sustained ring of cello and harpsichord, and also possibly the lower pitch, seemed to contribute more to the affects I perceived, except in the last movement.  

5. 1st movement:  I hear/read this as thoughtful/contemplative with some mystery.  A dark room with shadowy figures and occasional breakthroughs of discovery.  The c/h version expressed this better due to unified quiet flowing intensity of both flute and continuo.  The g/t/g version sounds more disjointed almost plodding, less legato in the continuo, shorter phrases.  

6. Regarding the placement of breaths in meas. 11, 13 and 18-19 (debatable due to Bach's lovely habit of making the end of one phrase=the beginning of the next): I vote for the c/h version (breath after 1st 1/8), which makes more sense with the bass line and reflects the phrasing set at the very beginning of the flute line (starts as pickup to beat 2).  Breaths before and during measure 8 in g/t/g version were jarring, coming between beats rather than after 1st 1/8 and/or 1/2way through the 3rd beat.  (I'm thinking these were unplanned live performance sneaks, as opposed to the elegant sneak in meas. 4 of the c/h version.)

7.  Effective use of ornamentation in the g/t/g version meas. 21-26, elaborating the b minor section ("breakthroughs of discovery").

8. 2nd movement:  Affect is decisive and steady.  Detached precisely articulated style in both versions supports this affect well, perhaps a bit more convincingly in the c/h version since the g/t/g version tends to go somewhat more legato in the arpeggio sections.

9. 3rd movement:  Affect of calm beauty, evoking simple devotional life--mystery of mvmt 1 resolved (into the relative major).  Both versions relatively restrained in use of ornamentation, rubato--befits the affect.  I prefer the straight (no flattement, no swell) expression of the dotted half's in the c/h version--beauty and simplicity, rather than mournfulness.

10. 4th movement:  A kind of dialog or argument in which both sides (treble and BC) are insistent, but insisting on the same thing!  Both versions present this well, with crisp repeated notes eg m. 13, 15, 17 in treble, 14, 16, 18 in bass.  In this movement the balance between treble and BC seems to work better in the g/t/g version--parts being more equal.