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". (AndrĂĄs Schiff, Music Comes Out of Silence, p. 21)
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Just wanted to share this personal milestone of finishing learning the two books of WTC the past year, and the next chapter is a lifelong one â to try to polish each one of them⊠please enjoy one of my personal favourite of all time â E-flat minor from book I, BWV 853. P.s. Iâm not a professional pianist so please share some advices or tips XD
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Katrina Wei Dear Katrina these are very beautiful performances of both the Prelude and the Fugue. The Fugue is certainly among the more difficult and complex ones in the entire 48, where the subject appears recto, then inversio, then in augmentation, and then sometimes all at the same time! I could hear every voice very clearly, and having played this one myself, I know how very difficult it is to bring the voices out clearly and independently. You do great justice to the seriousness and profundity of these pieces.
The only advice I can think of to give is: onward to polishing the next one on your list!
P.S. I'm working on this very same goal -- to get through the entire WTC. It's proceeding slowly for me, but I'm chipping away at it, pair by pair. I have 14 to go, and at that point I will have worked out the fingering and played through every one of them. But bringing one to performance level is a very different story; each one can take months. It's truly a lifelong journey. Congratulations on hitting your milestone, and keep up the good work.
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Peter Golemme thank you so much for the kind words Peter! And I absolutely love your performance of the P&F of F-sharp minor of book II (also one of my favourites)! I agree that this is one of the most difficult Fugue to play and I also find it quite challenging to keep a steady rhythm especially when playing slowlyâŠ
I have also been hooked on the Partitas lately (quite a distraction from the WTC haha) and find these to be some of the most exquisite and beautiful pieces of Bach, especially No. 6 in E minor and No. 4 in D major, hoping to be able to record some of these soon!
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Katrina Wei Very beautiful and expressive playing, Katrina! Your phrasing, articulation, and contrapuntal clarity, everything works remarkably well. You always shape phrases with that serene and profound style that I so love in Bach.
Of course, I'm not a professional pianist either, but since you asked for some advice, I'll just share my own obsession: the use of the sustain pedal. Following AndrĂ s Schiff's motto, "senza pedale ma con tanti colori" ("without pedal but with many colors"), I try -without being a fanatic- to restrain the use of the sustain pedal as much as possible in Bach.
By the way, I was very fortunate to see Schiff perform the entire second book of the Well-Tempered Clavier in Leipzig just a few days ago. It was truly marvellous.
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Juan Carlos Olite thank you very much for the kind words and advice! I do tent to use more sustain pedal than necessary especially when it comes to slower paced pieces like this, with a lot of tricky passages, which is something Iâm trying hard to get better at among many other things. However, Iâm not sure if I would ever acquire the taste for a minimal pedal in playing Bach but itâs just a personal preference, plus that I donât think I will ever achieve Schiffâs mastery to make it even sound okay hahaâŠ
Since youâre sharing yours, my personal obsession when it comes to the WTC recording is Richterâs, for his meditative style with âbold statementsâ. I have once read a story (not sure if itâs true) that he had choose to playing the entire WTC book I at Stalinâs funeral, until he was dragged off stageâŠhttps://www.wqxr.org/story/277575-bach-360-well-tempered-clavier/
I have also grown fond of Aimardâs rendition of Book I, for his âFrench styleâ interpretation, creative and almost childlike at times. For example, I like how he played the trills in his prelude in G minor:
https://youtu.be/6QjeB6pjAOo?si=tZheNNtImU4gLF4k
Hope to hear more about everyoneâs âobsessionsâ and creative interpretations, as I believe that everyone would have their own unique experiences and ideas of how Bach should sound like!
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