Mr. Valenti, a Yale classmate of Mr. Buckley's, was regarded as one of the premier keyboard artists in the world; he proves to be as delightful verbally as in his chosen medium as he and his host explore the Baroque and its relation to the modern. WFB (after Mr. Valenti has played the gigue from Bach's B-flat Partita): "Wow! Was the hand crossing supposed to be in any sense exhibitionistic, or does the music just make it impossible to accomplish in any other way?" FV: "Well, it's a little bit of both. It certainly is supposed to have a visual impact on the audience, and it's sheer ham.... Some pieces can actually be played, some of the most famous hand-crossing incidents in the Baroque era, without crossing your hands." WFB: "You mean by refingering and so on?" FV: "Yes, you can play your notes and be faithful to the score without this pretzel-shaped operation ... However, it doesn't sound the same, which leads one to believe that... the kinesthetic thrill, the danger of missing the note--which one very, very often does--does something to the performer and does something to the piece.... The reason I know is because we have tried this experiment with some hand-crossing pieces on tape, where you can't actually see the performer ... and you can hear the difference."