Tonebase Bach Stage
This thread is dedicated to J.S. Bach keyboard music. We would like to renew the inspiring spirit of the old thread "Group-Journey through J.S. Bach" based on the inventions and extend to the entire Bach repertoire: inventions, preludes, fugues, toccatas, dances of the Suites and Partitas...
This is for everyone who wants to join!
We can enjoy Bach music together and motivate each other in the process of learning and practicing it!
"I begin every day with Bach - usually for about an hour. I used to torture myself with Czerny, which of course wasn't exactly stimulating for the mind. On the other hand, it teaches you the fingering for a B flat major scale, chromatic thirds, and so on. The daily grind of learning. Later, I discovered that I could get my 'training' under way better with Bach - a refreshment for the body, soul and spirit". (András Schiff, Music Comes Out of Silence, p. 21)
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One of my favorites three-part inventions. Nulla die sine Bach!
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Juan Carlos Olite I love it! Thanks for posting.
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Juan Carlos Olite I admire the way you breathe with every phrase. So clear and thoughtful.
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Vidhya Bashyam Natalie Peh Gail Starr Marc M Thank you so much, Bach mates!
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Here is an excerpt of Aria from Bach‘s Goldberg Variations. I hope you like it! https://www.instagram.com/reel/C5KKsLSoXci/?igsh=MWR2czV2dGhycHd0Zw==
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Aaron That was beautiful, thank you for sharing!
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maijahildur Thank you, Maija!
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Aaron thanks so much for sharing! Very calming listening to this.
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Aaron Beautifully sung, Aaron! Thank you very much for sharing!
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Hello everyone. So many interesting and beautiful performances here, I'm not always able to comment or contribute but I enjoy every single one of them. Here, with some trepidation, I offer my rendition of WTC Bk II F Major, which I recently recorded for Dominic's spring recital.
I fancy that I can play it better, with no mistakes, and if I'm ever able to deliver on that, I will be sure post the results!
I got some inexpensive video software (Luma Fusion) that allows you to synchronize multiple video signals, so I rounded up every device in the house that could record video and perched them, sometimes rather hazardlously, around the piano, to allow for different camera angles. This too, still a work in process! As am I!
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Peter Golemme wonderful playing! I really enjoyed listening to your prelude and fugue, played with very nice and clear articulation. The writeup you had below your video on YouTube was also very informative. Thank you so much for sharing!
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Natalie Peh Thank you Natalie! This pair is part of my sojourn throught the entire WTC, & I am pleased to have got it this far along. But can that see there is so much more I could do by way of subtlety (never my strong point!) , nuance and articulation. I learn so much about these and other qualities from the postings of all my Tonebase colleagues, on this thread and elsewhere.
Re: my write up, thanks for taking the time to read it! I find that conceptualizing a piece verbally really helps me to understand, learn and memorize it. The YouTube "Comments" section is a good place to share that, so as not to clog this thread with too much verbiage. There is so much to say about these pieces; adhering to the 5000 character limit was a real challenge!
I also have some thoughts on your lovely rendition of the G Major from Bk II, which I will be posting soon.
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Peter Golemme Excellent playing, Peter! It sounds really great with a very powerful and charming sense of rhythm! Thank you so much for sharing!
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Juan Carlos Olite Thank you Juan Carlos. You as our cicerone on this thread are a real inspiration to the rest of us, as you continually post Bach pieces, so well thought out and sensitively and capably performed, and usually memorized to boot.
I worked hard on the rhythms here and can't say I've mastered them, but they are very important,, especially in the bass of the fugue. The quicker passages, without consistent articulation and accents, could end up sounding like time keeping ticks rather than thematic material. For example in measures 45 - 52 there is a beautiful little bass run of scales through a cycle of 5ths -- F major to C minor to G minor to D minor- which is constructed entirely out of the second half of the subject. I wanted to be able to display this by accenting them consistently with the subject, but focusing too much on it was causing me to struggle with maintaining the tricky fingering etc. of the RH part. An ongoing challenge, but illustratative of the endless capacity of these pieces to delight and instruct!
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Hi Bach friends! Here my video of this month, one of my favorites preludes and fugues: B flat minor (Well Tempered Clavier first book).
It has everything. The Prelude with that ostinato and the rhythm pattern which symbolizes a grieving march, a funeral march. It reminds us of the beautiful opening to the Actus tragicus BWV 106; so just listening to this Cantata helps a lot to find an accurate tempo. And the Fugue with the unusual leap of a minor 9th, very expressive to maintain tension through the entire piece.
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Juan Carlos Olite Very nice Juan Carlos. You are showing yourself equally at home with Bach's more somber moods as you are with the brighter and/or reflective character of some of your other postings. I like how you pull back on some of these downbeats in the Prelude, which supports the 'strong/weak' distinction between the measures. & I totally agree about the minor ninth leap in the Fugue subject. It's very dramatic -- and tense, yes.. As the Fugue follows the Prelude, it seems to my ear that the minor 9th leap to the Gb in the tonic statement of the subject opening the Fugue is foreshadowed by the dramatic/climactic Gb diminished chord with the fermata towards the end of the Prelude. It seems like everything in Bach is connected!
And memorized again! I wish I could rent some storage space in that capacious memory of yours!
keep up the good work and thanks for taking the lead on this thread. It's a great place to collect & compare our thoughts on the Master of Masters, JSB.
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Peter Golemme Thank you very much, Peter. You're absolutely right with the reference to the fermata over the Gb diminished chord of the Prelude. It's a proof of the formal and expressive unity of both musical pages. Looking forward to your new contributions to this thread.
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