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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Hello, I am learning the English Suite No 2 by JS Bach. I am very grateful that Tonbase offers such an excellent support with the course by Anne Marie McDermott. I love her energy and enthusiasm when explaining the different parts of the suite to the learner. I come back to her lessons from time to time, and it always gives me the motivation to try to improve my playing. Today I made a recording of the long version (with repeats) of the Bourrée I and II and the Gigue. As I got used to play them without the repeats I had to realize how difficult it is to suddenly include them (especially when they have different endings). So here is my contribution to the Tonebase Bach stage. Best regards from
,Ursina
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Ursina Boehm Hi Ursina, great to see you here! Beautiful lively playing! I very much enjoyed it. Thank you for sharing!
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Andrea Buckland Thank you, Andrea. I also very much enjoyed the Allemande from the French Suite No 5 as well as the Fugue in F# Major that you have posted.
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Ursina Boehm Wonderful playing, Ursina! Plenty of liveliness and intensity. Thank you for sharing!
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Ursina Boehm the pieces are lovely and they are so nicely played as well! Thanks for sharing your video, I enjoyed it very much!
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Ursina Boehm This was really great Ursina! I love how your Bach combines precision along with such nice expression too.
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Juan Carlos Olite thank you so much for initiating this Bach stage! That’s really a great idea! And a huge Bravo to your Bach playing!
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Natalie Peh thank you! I still want to include some ornamentation in the repeats to make it more interesting. I will have a lesson this weekend especially dedicated to Bach and hope to get some ideas how to do that.
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Vidhya Bashyam thank you so much! I am learning the whole English Suite, but somehow these last two dance movements seem to be the most difficult for me. I guess I need some more time to really feel comfortable when playing them.
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Ursina Boehm Thank you so much, Ursina! We'll fill it with his music.
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Ursina Boehm a very impressive performance Ursina. Did you say you are still "learning" this piece? It sounds pretty well "learned" to me! such precise playing but also riding the ebb and flow of the emotions as well. And the counterpoint, so clear & well articulated. Looking forward to hearing the rest of the Suite when you are ready.
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Hello my wonderful Tonebase Bach piano friends! I cannot describe how thrilled I am to join you in posting a video here. My very first in this thread and surely not the last- Prelude and Fugue in G major, from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II
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Natalie Peh Great Natalie! Really like this G major Prelude/Fugue. It suits your playing so well.
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Vidhya Bashyam Thanks, Vidhya! It does make for compulsive playing somehow. I think I have happily lingered on this piece for too long :)
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Natalie Peh Brava, Natalie! So glad to see you on the Bach stage! Very enjoyable to listen to your Bach!
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Andrea Buckland thank you very much, Andrea! So glad you enjoyed it!
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Natalie Peh Beautiful, Natalie. Such a quiet, calm way of playing. It does sound very familiar to me ....
My teacher gave me a Bach piece to learn - but it's Johann Christian, so it will still be a little while before I join in with a submission.
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Natalie Peh Sounds great, Natalie, with these long phrases well articulated in Bach spirit! Thank you for sharing it and how wonderful to see you here
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Michelle R thanks, Michelle! I'm glad you are learning a piece by Johann Christian. I'm not familiar with his music, and would love to hear you play it!
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Juan Carlos Olite thanks so much for starting this group practice diary! That's such an excellent idea! I look forward to joining you and all our piano friends in posting our videos more regularly.
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Natalie Peh Well done, Natalie! You bring out the different lines and melodies very nicely. Uplifting music!
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Michelle R It's a "Bach" piece, Michelle; we would love to hear it here in Tonebase Bach Stage (all in the family
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Juan Carlos Olite Oh! Wonderful! I'll be sure to record it and post soon. Thanks!!
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Natalie Peh I enjoyed this performance very much Natalie. I understand perfectly how you could want to play this piece over and over. I love hearing the sequences of patterns based on the scale steps. I've noticed that the key signature of one sharp seems to bring this out in Bach's WTC pieces, as I see similar sequential patterns in the other WTC offerings in G Major and E minor. To me it seems like Bach is pointing out the compelling nature of the arrangement of steps in the major scale -- rather than just a historical convention, there is something very satisfying in the progression of whole and half steps that has made it such a fundamental part of our harmonic system.
Many performers in my collection play these pieces at a blisteringly fast speed, which (after I get over feeling envious) I think is not as nice as a moderate tempo, which displays the harmonic arrays built on scale steps more like a gently opening flower than a momentary dazzle of light (if I may mix my metaphors). Keep up the good work, and we'll look forward to additional offerings!
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The three-part invention nº5 in E flat major (BWV 791) is that kind of Bach piece that when you have finished of playing it, you want to play it again, and again... Little masterpiece.
By the way, as the Latin writers said about their daily work nulla die sine linea (no day without a line), we could have our own motto in the Tonebase Bach Stage:
Nulla die sine Bach
