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Hello. I just got the sheet music from Bach's Italian Concerto
I am going to play it soon, anyone else that played it, or going to play it? Advices??

I played it years ago. The second movement is beautiful, and rather sight-readable. I played the second movement at my sister's wedding for before the service while everyone is taking their seats. (Actually, that wedding was neat, all my selections were concert piano repertoire, my grandma remarked afterwards that perhaps my performance upstaged the ceremony ).

I haven't read even the first movement, yet.
I hope the second is Great as you say.
What about the first movement?
(cool about your performance )

I played the full piece for my Sr Recital in Undergraduate 15 years ago. To this date I still play it on "auto-pilot". It's a great piece, fairly easy to memorize, but the 2nd movement is a bit tougher to memorize. I'd say the 3rd mvmt is the best, very bouyant and light. If your piano has a heavy action it can be a challenge to get the tempo up.

Well, personally, I'm not a fan of the work. Probably because its such a standard for student repertoire that one hears endless uninspired performances of it. Which is precisely the reason I programmed Scarlatti on my senior recital instead of the usual Bach suite or fugue or partita that most students do.

I believe its quite a challenge to make Bach musical (thats a comment on performance, not on his compositions), and I dont believe many students pull it off.

But all that aside, I dont know your level of ability, but the first movement can be a lot of fun, its not terribly challenging, but certainly isnt trivial either.

(Oh, and when I say the second mvmt is sight readable, thats just the notes. It does take some work musically, such as voicing the double notes in the left hand, keeping the pedal tones clean, singing expressively with the lyrical voice, phrasing, etc.)

Edit: I wrote this before seeing bboyers remarks. LOL.

The most moving playing I've ever heard from Wanda Landowska is her performance of the second movement.

After the very emotional music in that movement, Bach switches to the energetic last movement, almost like pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Mozart gets the same effect between the slow and last movements of his 23rd concerto, A, (K. 488 I think).

It was my first non-contrapunctual Bach I played. I liked it a lot and while it is definitly deservedly popular I don't think this is very representitive of Bach.

I tried to learn it, but I just couldn't - it just didn't appeal to me.

It's a great piece, but I am yet to discover it completely.

I recently got the sheet music too. I love it. Funny - - I never viewed it as being terribly overplayed, but maybe it's a generational thing. I'm finding more and more as I get older that certain pieces and composers seem to come in and out of popularity.

I played it a couple years ago. The first movement in my opinion is much harder than the 3rd. Although the third sounds more difficult, the first movement has quite a bit of small nuances and doesn't fit under your hand as well as the third does.

It's a fun piece, the second movement is incredible as well. Now I want to go get it back up!

It really does. And the First movement it's strange to play.. hmm I dnt know how to say.. It's not really easy

I think it was Schnabel who said that a great piece of music was one that was better than it could be played.

I hadnt heard that. Thats a great quote. Reminds me of Michaelangelo who said he didnt create those great sculptures, they were already in the rock, all he did was remove the parts of the rock that were in the way.

Its very much the same idea.

Wonderful Quotes.

For me, the single most important piece of advice i got from my teacher was to remember that the first movement is in 2/4. It doesn't really make sense in 4/4, but if you think about it in 2 the piece becomes much easier to play.

As for the second movements - the notes are easy. Making beautiful music out of it is HARD.

I worked on this quite a number of years ago too. I actually loved it then, and periodically will pick up again just to enjoy it now. You can hear how Bach set out to imitate the style of an Italian Violin concerto.

Now keeping this in mind, play the phrases with different levels of legato and staccato to bring out the solo and tutti effects he was looking for.

One of the things that a teacher showed me was to really balance the chords in it. Play the outside of the chords and let the middle 'float'. This makes the piece sound less heavy on the modern piano.

This really is a wonderful piece with a lot more to it than meets the eye. Remember to take the road trip as far as you can with in, and enjoy it as much as you can.

John

I like alot of bach but I don't like this.