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What is your experience learning the Well-Tempered Clavier?

Has anybody "conquered" the A Minor fugue from Book 1?

I like the D Minor fugue the most of everything in Book 1.

The melody of the 5th (D Major) prelude from Book 2 is curious-it does not sound like typical Bach, and he mixes 12/8 and cut time as needed.

It's great for your eyes, ears, fingers, and soul. I've only played a couple and only really studied the dm from book 1 and never performed any of them, but they're marvelous. I plan to learn a few over the summer and actually bring them to performance standards.

The prelude from the dm of book 1 is not to difficult at all but quite fun to play and the fugue is the same - straightforward three voices with fairly obvious transitions of the tenor voice between hands. That was my first one. I loved it.

Regarding the D major prelude Book II prelude (which I'm working on): There is great debate about whether one should actually switch to cut time, or keep everything in 12/8. For an example of the latter (which my teacher told me to do in no uncertain terms), see Richter:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ej5rGGTHy54&t=2h18m53s


-Jason

I've done 9 Prelude/fugues plus 2 additional preludes. Every one was a feast for the ears and fingers. Every one had to be learned slowly and carefully, measure by measure. Bringing out the voices is the most difficult/fun part. I love learning and playing Bach. Come to think of it, it's been almost 2 years since I've learned something new. Maybe it's time I started another set.

I'm with that


.....but not with that!

I'm not with very much stuff like this at all "in no uncertain terms."
Are you?

Just because she wasn't uncertain doesn't mean she wouldn't respect my opinion if I disagreed (and could defend it). She's told me before: she has no direct line to Bach; he doesn't call her on the phone to discuss these kinds of things. Others' opinions are valued.

That said, when I told her I was interested in this prelude and fugue, the *very first thing* she said was: That's fine, but please, please, keep it all in 12/8!

Even still, she would have accepted it if I'd gone the other way-- with a grimace and a smile.

-J

Cool! That's great. Or more than good enough anyway.

BTW, I would have played it her way (because it's mine too) but argued about her definitiveness.
And not just because of this particular instance but because of the principle, let's call it almost a religion, against being so sure of such a thing. (I guess it's more like an anti-religion....)

I play it the other way. Does that make me a bad person? Is it wrong?

No. There's debate. Schiff and Gould (and, I'm sure, others) switch in and out of 4/4 time. On of my favorite books, The Forty-Eight Preludes and Fugues of J. S. Bach by Cecil Gray, makes an argument for it. You're not in bad company.

-J

Can someone direct me to an autograph which includes a mixed time signature?

As you well know, Bach didn't explicitly write in a mixed time signature.

I think you think you're making a point by asking this question, but I'm not completely sure. Anyway, there's a healthy debate on the issue out there, evidenced by e.g. Gould's vs. Richter's recordings.

-J

He's surely intending to make a point, but it's impossible (yes, Stores, impossible) to know what it is.

One would think he's implying that just one of the rhythmic interpretations is correct -- but, if so, which one? It would seem to be to advocate the 'Richter way,' but I'm not sure because that would seem to go against his usual literalism -- in this case, about the note values as they appear literally on the page.

Or, it's possible he doesn't mean anything about how it should be played but that he's just commenting on calling anything here a mix of time signatures. (And in fact, I've never thought of the 'literal' interpretation of the note values as an alternation of time signatures, but on this thread I saw it as a very useful shorthand to express one of the ways of playing the piece.)

I hope he's clear on what he meant.

IMO his unknowing ambiguity is more interesting than any point that could be behind it.
My best guess: He does believe in the literal interpretation of the notes values -- let's call it the 'Gould way' -- but perhaps didn't realize that that's exactly what is being called here an alternation of time signatures. I'm willing to be wrong.

(Stores, the world is waiting.)

This post is so dumb that it just has to be repeated.

re : WTC, Bk II, Prelude V in D major :

"The deplorable tradition which within a generation after Bach's death reduced this Prelude to plain 12/8 time, has the excuse of originating in some contemporary statement as to what is nowadays called an "agogic accent" in figures like that of bar 2 - i.e., a stress tending to lengthen the first note of a group. but it is impossible to suppose that any composer would use a double time-signature in order elaborately to miswrite one simple rhythm in terms of another. There is no conceivable doubt that Bach meant what he wrote: a delightful cross-rhythm between triplets and couplets. But it is also established, by contemporary textbooks and other documentary and internal evidence, that in the period of Bach and Handel dotted rhythms chime with their surroundings, regardless of the rigid arithmetical theory that the dot adds just one half to its note. Hence it is inferred that throughout this Prelude [image of dotted eight-note plus sixteenth-note, dotted eighth-note plus sixteenth-note] stands for [image of quarter-note plus eighth-note, quarter-note plus eighth-note]; and there is no doubt that this is the case in bars 12-16 and similar passages where the dotted notes are in no contrast to others." [1]

"An interesting and uncommon feature in these first bars, by the way, is the alternation of twelve-eight and four-four time [image of the first 4 measures]
Whether it was that such a proceeding shocked the conscience of nineteenth-century editors, or whether they refused to believe that Bach could have intended it, and supposed that he had simply made a slip of the pen, one finds in old editions, such as that of Czerny, and consequently in some performances, that the crotchets of the second and fourth bars are dotted and the even quavers split up into crotchet and quaver in order to make them conform to the rhythmical pattern of the first and third bars." [2]

[1] Donald Francis Tovey, in J.S. Bach: Forty-Eight Preludes and Fugues, Book II. London, ABRSM (no date), p. 46.

[2] Gray, Cecil. The Forty-Eight Preludes and Fugues of J.S. Bach. London, Oxford University Press, 1938. pp. 92-93

Regards,

Thank you for adding your useless insight.

In this case, I'd say you're using "dumb" roughly as a stand-in for too sophisticated for you to grasp.

Let's test it out: Do you understand what he meant?
Can you articulate it clearly?

(Go ahead, surprise us.)

Assuming you can't, I'll look for an apology -- which I'm sure I won't get.

Excellent info. The Henle Verlag 2007 urtext edition has some nice notes regarding Bach's writing techniques. He was generally careful to align notes vertically in his autographs to indicate that he wanted them played simultaneously, even if the notes didn't match mathematically - bar 5 being the first example, where the dotted figures are played as triplets. Sadly, Bach didn't indicate in the autograph how to play the duples in bar 18, but it is assumed that it is played the same as in bar 2 and the urtext has placed the duples under the sixteenths in that manner.

You misunderstood me. I was referring to his rude comment, not your post. Sorry about the confusion. I, for one, didn't really see anything too dumb about your post...

First, Mark, your's for your rudeness towards Stores, which you surely won't give.

Thanks, Poly -- and yes, I misunderstood. I lost sight of who it was that you were addressing it to.
(Sorry! And I've edited that post.)


I will, if you show us a way to have said it better.

And BTW I'm waiting to see if you can show that you understood what he meant. If you can't, I expect a thank you for bringing the unclarity to his attention.