Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Baroque Recital - how are you going with your preparation?

Finished my recording (and video) of the short prelude bwv939 last weekend. Could be better (isn't that always true?), but I'm fairly happy with it.

Whizbang,

Thanks for my morning chuckle. Bach has always been a real killer for me.

I'm actually working up three movements of Bach's Suite in B Minor for flute and orches... piano. Even a transcription of the orchestra part is devilish.

I got a decent enough recording the other day.

That said, there are a number of things I want to work on and improve, and I'm hoping to have something quite a bit better by submission time.

I started learning the piece I signed up for back in early September. By November, my teacher said good, done, put it away. With the holidays and now my current work schedule, I have not had a chance to do anything about it. I need to bring it back and spend a day or two to focus on relearning it. I'll start when we get closer to March.

3 pages sort of learned and mostly memorized, the last page still to be fingered...And plenty of time left for polishing and recording...or so it seems...;)

Tried for a recording last night. My concentrations in pieces on the floor. And it can stay there for now. Another day, maybe better luck!

My teacher's actually a huge advocate of doing just that. Record, listen, write down our thoughts in the music, then delete the recording. She thinks one should do that every week, everyday if we had the time. Of the times I've done that, I really see the benefit, but I simply don't practice this advise enough. For the recital, while it'd be beneficial for me to record several times, listening, and looking for ways to improve like what you're doing, I know it would just come down to the wire, and I'd go with the first recording.

I can get through my entire piece now, but not quite at speed. At speed I make 10 or more mistakes over the entire piece. Improvement has been gradual but steady. I am going to start recording daily (just turn on the red dot, so to speak) which will force me to focus a bit more on accuracy and rhythm - and just maybe, yield an actual recording! In about two weeks time I'll try very seriously for a once-through recording with minimal errors. I think the repeat (called for in the piece) ain't gonna happen! and I will also have to drop some of the advanced voicings that are commonly used by virtuoso players. Ah - the difficulties of the beginner.

My piece is also not quite up to speed. Am trying to memorize in the hopes it will get me past some repeated stumbling blocks. Got to work on evening out the tempo, while also working in those barricades (i'm playing Couperin's Mysterious Barricades)

Even though it's not ready to record yet, I want to start recording sections of it and listening back to get a sense of what I need to work on.

btw, I LOVE this piece and am so happy I'll finally be able to play it.

My Invention #6 needs a faster tempo with more consistent articulation! I've gotten conflicting opinions on articulation--8th notes detached or not, and the three-note 16th notes figures throughout, up on the last note or not? My teacher has not been that helpful--seems not interested in teaching Bach--and YouTube performances vary, even with well-known performers. If anyone can offer advice, it'd be much appreciated.

I picked Bach for the Baroque recital because I did lots of Bach as a teenager. I think my teacher used them for finger exercise as I only got a couple to the recital level. That was 40 years ago. I'm realizing now that I need more help to interpret correctly. Better late than never!

If I can't get a smoother, more confident performance I have another easier piece for fallback and will save the Invention for another recital.

If the main pulse of the music is in 8th notes, then the 8th notes should be detached. My take is always get your articulation completely secure before doing anything about going faster. Playing slightly under tempo is ok as long as your articulation is bang on and you are being expressive. Bach was a master of the string instruments, so you must always do your best to hear his music with what could be done on strings, particularly shaping, voicing, and phrasing, and do this for the piano, paying particular attention to legato and non-legato transitions. Some teachers in the past taught inventions on the piano as if they would be performed on a harpsichord. That is not acceptable because the piano is not a harpsichord, just as Bach would never have played a violin like a harpsichord without all the possibilities on the violin. You should always do all that your instrument allows as much as possible if not push its envelope a little even.

Back in the 80's Bach inventions were considered easier because back then it was a popular trend to say baroque keyboard music were performed on keyboard instruments not capable of dynamics, so we should replicate that faithfully. I was even taught that in college by a Ph.D. in the music department, but I believe that view fell out of fashion by the 90's. Accordingly, music boards like RCM have moved Bach inventions into the higher grade levels because the expectations is much more now. You must do much more for an invention now compared to 30 or 40 years ago. This may be why you learned them as finger exercises then, but things changed now.

Be really selective when looking for stuff on YouTube. The Invention #6 performed by Glenn Gould is definitely worth listening to. The one attached below is particularly good too because it is strings and give you what Bach was hearing in his head even as he wrote for the keyboard, so you need to go after this possibility on the piano.



Good luck. I'm sure since you played as a child something this difficult 40 years ago, you'll do great!

There's no right or wrong answer. Just make a choice and stick with it. If you like the sound of detached 8ths, go with that. As far as what to do at the end of slurs, I always play them detached, but it does depend on the tempo too. It can sound a bit fussy at faster tempi.

Thanks, 8 Octaves!

It’s interesting that you mentioned RCM levels. I was really surprised to find the inventions at levels 7 and 8 because there’s so much Level 5 music I find daunting. But I’ve seen plenty of Bach anxiety on the forums so I think it’s just a matter of what you’re used to. I always had a Bach piece to work on so I think nothing of sitting down and slowly working it out. I don’t play them well or up-to-tempo but I like working on them.

Your explanation about the shift in perspective regarding the Inventions makes sense.

re: the performances

The violins were wonderful! I think they really capture the spirit of the piece. Just gorgeous! Glenn Gould is intriguing--beautiful but so individual. I listened to a few other performances. Adras Schiff's may be the one I'll turn to for ideas on interpretation and articulation.

I can see I need to do more research on my own before I put in too many hours of practice. (My current teacher never goes over pieces before I start them.) It's hard to relearn. I probably could redo all my Bach pieces and get lots from them.

Thanks for encouragement. We'll see. Right now too many mistakes at MUCH slower tempo. I'll try anyway. There's always the fallback piece too for this recital.

Morodienne,

It would be easier if there were the right or wrong answer! I'll listen more carefully (supposed to do that anyway, right?) and try for consistency.

Thanks!

I think it is good that there is no right or wrong answer. Bach's music is so rich and many of his pieces can be interpreted in very different ways, all being beautiful and worth listening to. Consistency, on the other hand, is important. You just have to choose how you want it to sound.

There's always room for interpretation in music, or it wouldn't be so meaningful--expressing the composer, instrument, performer and audience partnership. But (outside the supportive environment of PW) there are critics and experts who readily point out what's right or wrong :-)

For beginning and intermediate students who don't have much knowledge it helps to have guidance. My edition of the Inventions is a 50 year old Peters urtext. I think I'll just spring for an over-edited Alfred edition for ideas.

I appreciate the good advice and reassurance. The piece already sounds a little better.

For the Baroque recital, are folks entering pieces as arranged by the original composer, or can it be arranged by someone else and still qualify?

I'm not entering, but I did select a teeny little something to learn alongside all of you, adhering to the March deadline as a challenge. I've read what I can on these recitals, but I don't understand some of the requirements.

ETA: I'd like to learn Corelli's Sonata 10, Opus 5:10, Gavotte Allegro in F major. Ha, I just wrote that from memory, even though I don't know what it all means.

I found some sheet music of this same Gavotte, but with Dussek's name as the composer. I've tried asking in a thread I created, but no response. Does this mean he took Corelli's work and made his own arrangement?

Even if Dussek hails from the Classical Era, is this arrangement considered Baroque? Would it qualify for the recital?

Thanks!!

I'd say anything goes as long as it has some connection with the baroque composers, we are not picky. An arrangement is fine.

I'm doing a Bach-Busoni. Ferruccio Busoni was so famous for his transciptions of Bach's music that people thought his name was really Bach-Busoni.

Sam

This is good to know. I've never known how this works. The terminology and the world of arrangements is brand new to me.

So, just curious. Is it too late to enter something for the recital?