Tonebase Bach Stage

Katrina Wei Very nice Katrina.  I can hear all the voices really clearly, especially in the Strettos, which I know is very difficult to achieve.  (and I have meant to comment that the same is true in your D# Minor Fugue -- those strettos with the open 5ths being even more difficult to differentiate the voices -- excellent work!).   

I haven't learned this Gm Fugue yet, but have played through it several times.  My inclination has been to play it quite slowly and legato, sort of in the same mood as the Prelude.  But this works really well at your tempo, too.  Of the 16 pianists/harpsichordists in my collection, there are several who play it closer to your tempo than to mine.  After I start to learn a piece, I find that it tends to insist on its own tempo, so I'm not sure where mine is going to end up. Like so much of Bach, this piece admits of many tempos and interpretations, and sounds good in all of them!

You are a very accomplished player & I am not in a position to offer you advice.  However, as a listener, I did find that I wanted you to linger on the final note longer than you did, to let everything that has gone before sink in.  It seems as though you were in a rush to shut off the recording, in your relief at having produced such a fine performance -- at least that's what happens to me sometimes, so perhaps I'm just projecting!

Thank you for sharing your WTC journey with us.  Are we going to get to hear the Prelude soon?

Peter Golemme Thank you for your comments! I started with a slower tempo as well as how Richter approached it (my favourite WTC recording!), but then find myself getting the rhythmic drive much better at a faster tempo after watching a few other performances, which is very similar to the gm fugue in book II.  As for the prelude, I find it quite difficult to maintain a steady pulse and bring it to the musicality I had constructed in my mind, especially when trying to transition to the faster fugue, and my solution is to do somewhat of a crescendo and build up the sonority as I end the piece. As I have come to resolve with myself that this is an ongoing process to achieve the desired results, here is the prelude with many problems haha… 

https://youtu.be/TFWcc0qn_VQ?si=xHWVqnOjhJufXI4S

I have also been very inspired by Dominic’s recent webinar on the topic of fugue, and have recorded one more in D major in Book II. The pedaling in this piece has been a huge challenge and I have been working on this issue for quite some time. I am nowhere near performance ready for the prelude yet but here is the recording of the fugue: https://youtu.be/YVbesywfN7U?si=Lt147Es9WXcCNm9u

Katrina Wei Dear Katrina these are again wonderful performances which have caused me to hear these 2 pieces in a new way.  Starting with the G minor Prelude, where you really bring out the rhythmic cohesiveness among the several voices.  I think you are doing an excellent job  maintaining the pulse. It's definitely locked in, and perhaps now you can relax about that a little bit, backing off slightly from emphasizing it, and let it find its way through the other aspects of your performance.  The ending is working really well IMO. I love the sense of winding down to the cadence (would you call it that?) on the 2-4 voicing of the dominant D7 chord in M. 15, and then suddenly Bach throws in a Coda, building in intensity around m. 17, where the 5-note 32nd note motif occurs on every beat from there on. I hear it as a building of intensity, but you are right, it's a buildup of the sonority that creates the intensity! leading to some relief and occasion for contemplation when it relaxes (sort of!) into that somewhat unsettled closing cadence with the persistent trill at the end.

Again if you're interested in some food for thought about contrasting approaches, I have visualized this Prelude as rather dreamy and would be inclined to play it much more slowly (but  keeping in mind that I have not yet committed myself to learning it, although it's definitely on my list in my own trek through the WTC-- and often when learning a piece I find that it starts to insist on a particular tempo that may be very different from my original choice).  However, I can see how a slower approach could undermine the effect of the pulse & rhythms which you bring out so well.  You are in good company, as several of the pianists in my collection favor a more brisk approach than I would expect.  In my Dover edition, the tempo is described as "Lento" with an MM of 56 per quarter note (I believe they take this from Czerny's edition), and that Tovey recommends even slightly faster. Those tempos seem much too fast for me, and do not feel "Lento" at all.  You are clocking in somewhere around  48 (would you say?), which I hear as  more of a brisk "Andante" then "Lento". It preserves the contemplative character of the Prelude while allowing you to bring out the more rhythmic aspects as they are presented from voice to voice and measure to measure, something I never really noticed about this piece before.

One more thought I'd like to share with you (keeping in mind that I have little formal training in classical repertoire, although I have studied many of these WTC pieces rather intently) : I notice you start all your trills on the Auxiliary note, as we are usually told to do (good girl!).  However, I find this a little unsettling, at least where the trills appear in the bass. I find that leading with the auxiliary undermines the resolution of the cadences in mm. 7 (into the relative major) and 11 (into the subdominant).  Of course I understand that the point of a trill is often to defer a resolution with some dissonance, but in these cases my ear wants to hear the nice solid cadence on that tonic when it's re-introducing the opening theme (noticing that in the actual opening there is a nice solid tonic in the bass -- even though the soprano is trilling).

Well I hope I haven't gone on too long here or that I seem presumptuous in offering these comments. Despite your wonderful performance here you seem in your comments still to be searching for something you're not quite capturing in your own rather self-critical mind. Since I had such a different concept of this piece I thought you might be interested in these thoughts. Perhaps they might help you look at certain spots differently, or if nothing else, help to convince you that your own approach is quite viable already!

Peter Golemme And now I'd like to add a quick comment about your D Major fugue (from Book 2).  I consider this piece very challenging, as there seems to be at least a 3 voice stretto going on in practically every other bar. As with your D# minor, you are bringing out the separate voices within the strettos really well! I have not tried to play this one yet. In fact I've been dreading getting to it, because it often seems to be played very 'squarely' I would say, with rigid march-like rhythms. But what I'm hearing in your performance is a very nice slight sense of relaxation as the second half of the subject plays out. I'm not sure what is producing that effect, ---- are you perhaps slightly diminishing the volume as the notes step downward? or tiny rubato? Whatever it is, it's working, and it strikes me as something very difficult to achieve in the context of all these strettos. But it really breathes life into the subject and the piece overall and is motivating me to take a closer look at this Fugue. Great work there!

Peter Golemme oops seem to be replying to myself here, but Katrina the above comment was supposed to be addressed to you, not me!

Peter Golemme Thank you once again for such wonderful comments which really help me understand the theory and musical interpretation aspects with much profound insights! I don't usually get very analytical before starting the piece, but it definitely helps me to have the confidence to bring out certain aspects of delivery of the piece.  As for the idea of contrasting the prelude and the fugue, I have definitely noticed it especially prominent in quite a few pieces in Book II, and the gm in Book II seem to take on a similar idea with a slow prelude followed by a much more intense fugue. There are quite a few pieces that do the opposite - faster prelude and a slower fugue, and the most notable one is perhaps the D# minor in Book II, where I had envision the fugue to deliver a sense of "knocking on heaven's door", well at least with Richter's interpretation, and it's dauntingly beautiful...

I don't think I have come to a mature understanding of what the preludes are really about, and what the relationship between their fugues are, but I have noticed that the fugues generally seem to connect to the next prelude seamlessly (perhaps the picardy thirds, not sure if I used the right term), and one thing Bach did in his time that was far superior than the others are his chromatic compositions, which seem to be especially the theme in a lot of his compositions in B minor. Anyway, back to interpretating his work, my goal is to embrace his experimental approach and try to be as creative as possible within a few sets of rules, and the interpretation of ornaments is one of them, although when it comes to recordings, I always end up taking a much more reserved approach, it's perhaps because that I lack the confidence to do so with all the many other concerns, but it is my goal to find it as I try my best to do more recordings...

As for the D-major Fugue, I found it somewhat manageable when trying to follow along rhythmically with all the quarter notes, which aligns perfectly well with the subjects and make the piece sound less ... notey, but again, there's still a long way to achieve the desired clarity when I think pedaling in this piece is almost neccessary in my opinion. 

Thank you again, Peter, for all your profound insights and encouragements, you made this journey feel more fulfilling as I find it could get a bit lonely and easily distracted sometimes...

Juan Carlos Olite Thank you, Juan Carlos, I have been trying to pay more attention to the use of pedal as well. Thank you again for your advice and creating this valuable practice stage!

Peter Golemme thank you so much, Peter! My playing of the fugue has quite a few noticeable mistakes than I would hope for, and I really should start memorizing pieces as well for performances. The pieces that you mentioned are quite challenging for me for now as I am still trying to find a way through recording pieces with faster tempi. Hoping to see your performance soon!!