BACH: Sinfonia No. 2 in C minor, BWV 788

[riga]

Sinfonia No. 2 in C minor, BWV 788

Comments welcome! 

Cheers,
Riga

[mara_]

I find it a bit too slow and lifeless. Could you put a little more energy into it? Perhaps learning it by heart would help you to play it with greater authority.

[ganymed]

first of all i want to say that I like your playing ! Furthermore, the recording quality is very nice and the sound of the piano aswell. May I know on which piano you recorded this sinfonia and with which equipment ?


I dont play this sinfonia but  a few minor  advices/ suggestions would be:


bar 7: The trills have to be played long according to my the comments in my henle edition.
You can hear it also in goulds recording and others.

"The bracketed ornaments are takenfromthe aforesaid Friedmann Bach copy. In Gerber's Copy ( bach's student)  the trills in bar 7, 15-16 and 30 are characterized as long.

Concerning the Theme. You play it a bit too staccato  which doesnt really fit into this sinfonia for my taste. I think everyone note deserves to be played no matter how inconsiderable they seem.

but GOOD JOB !!

[rachfan]

Hi riga,

I like your playing a lot.  Nice job!

If I had to make a couple of suggestions, I would go along with some of ganymed's comments.  First, the three trills in question are not acciaccaturas (grace notes) or short appogiaturas, but rather full-fledged, long trills.  Their purpose is to prolong sound (where the piano is a percussive instrument with a short tone decay time unlike a stringed or wind instrument).  The two trills played in the RH in measures 7 and 30 have harmonic notes as accompaniment in the same hand--which is a good technique for all pianists to practice.  So in 7, for example, you have to "layer" the sound.  So the main theme now in the LH will be at f dynamic, the harmonic notes in the RH in the middle will be played mf, and the trill, which is strictly background sound only, will be even softer at mp or even p.  It sounds challenging, and it is, but once you get the hang of it, you'll be able to play layered dynamics like this in any other piece where you face a similar situation--and there are many, many of them in the repertoire! 

The other thing is that I would agree with is that there is probably too much staccato effect in your touch.  While there is indeed some staccato and legato in Bach, most of his pieces are predominently played in what's called "nonlegato" touch, which is in between legato and staccato.  That is, the notes are not closely connected, but are not short either.  So in playing short slurs or phrases, for example, you'll simply want to gently lift the wrist and hand to taper it off, but without any short staccato effect.  There are a few explicit staccato markings though, for instance, in the final measure.  Thus, only execute that touch when specifically called upon to do so by Bach.

Your playing is very even and clean in articulation.  In Bach, clarity is extremely important, so you're doing that really well.  You also have a good rhythmic sense and your playing has very nice fluidity to it.  I like it!  Keep up the good work.

[ganymed]

an advice that my teacher gave me concerning trills.

If you have a rather long trill in for example the right hand and another voice in the left hand it is best to concentrate on the hand left hand and kind of forget about the trills.

Just do the trills without concentrating on them too much. Rather have a look at what the other hand is doing.  I always had problems with embellishments and was scared of messing them up. Therefore my hand who had to execute the trills became tensed. So the outcome sounded very bad.

Conclusion: Draw your attention to what the other hand has to play. In this way you will play the trills with more ease. Bach himself said they arent supposed to sound forced. Rather improvised.

[riga]

Hi all!

Thank you very much for your advices and suggestions. I'll take all with lot of respect and will try to fix them.

Regarding the concentration on the trills, Ganymed, your advice is completely true and valuable, sometimes it is hard to do them freely.

Doing the long trills WELL in this sinfonia is quite a challenge as rachfan mentioned, due to the weak fingers 4-5 are doing trills as the other fingers are following another voice. 

Anyway, I have a rather historical question: Do we know which kind of trills Bach wrote? The henle edition says the 'long' feature are from Gerber. Any clue about Bach hand?

Ganymed: I played on a Hindsberg baby gran, with a pair of C2 Berhinger mics (the cheapest condensator mics I could find but they work well).

Mara_: Almost everything I play, I do it from memory (HS and HT), including this sinfonia.

Thanks all for your comments, they are very helpful.

[ganymed]

i dont know much about recording. which other equipment did you use for the recording besides the microphones. There must be a technical device that saves the recording ?

Is there a name for that? im pretty much clueless

[riga]

i dont know much about recording. which other equipment did you use for the recording besides the microphones. There must be a technical device that saves the recording ?

Is there a name for that? im pretty much clueless

Sure!
The complete phase of my recordings system is:
C2 behringer mics -> behringer ULTRAGAIN PRO MIC2200 amplifier -> External sound card -> Laptop

Hope that this helps! (and hope that it's no problem to write brand names in the forum)

[ganymed]

thanks for helping me  and what does an amplifier do ?

[njalli]

...mkay