Piano Forum

It's such a testament to Bach's quality of writing that people having been fighting about it for hundreds of years.  I love that.  Because it means that people realize how special it is, that maybe it just matters more than other music.  One way to let yourself off the hook a little bit, if the pressure's getting too hot-- "play it like this," "no, play it like that"-- is to say that there aren't really rules, more like tendencies.  I mean, there are rules, actually, but there are many provisions for breaking them, so eventually you end up with something closer to tendencies.  I think you can defend the contrasting dynamics by pointing to vocal and orchestral works of Bach, in which different voices and instruments played very different and interesting lines at the same time-- how can we hear all of it?  Because the voices making different lines sound different from one another.  A different timbre, a diifferent natural volume, whatever.  Not always, but often (it's a tendency!). 
Also, in terms of dynamics, even when the music was just played on one instrument, that instrument was often a two-manual harpsichord or organ with moving lines played on different keyboards at the same time so as to be more distinct from one another.  So it seems like making one hand at the piano sound different from the other at times is defensible.  And it was during Bach's lifetime that the Swell box was invented (and quickly became popular) for the organ, allowing for gradual dynamic changes instead of just the abrupt change of registers that was possible before.  So it seems like the interest in gradations was a big thing happening in music (everywhere) at this time, which I think gives us some freedom with this in Bach.

You mentioned pedaling, which certainly has to be talked about when playing anything on piano.  I guess using it or not depends on what you want it to do.  The reason I pedal Bach is to "open up" the strings, warm the sound of the instrument more.  And, maybe? once in a great while to connect something I can't reach, but usually I think it sounds better to just articulate around problems like that.  I guess I leave it as an option for myself, but I hardly ever use it for that.  Baroque phrases are short, sometimes REALLY short, and if the pedal is used to make a long phrase, or to blend harmonies, whatever... things we might like to do in later music, it takes away one of the main characteristics of the whole era.  Conversely, in my opinion, to not pedal at all on a modern piano takes away one of the main characteristics of the instruments, namely, the quality of sound when all the strings are vibrating at least most of the time.  So I do pedal, but I don't know if you want to do what I do, because it's a hassle!  I pedal every moving note.  Every single one!  Unless it's such a fast scale run that it's basically a glissando, but sixteenth notes etc, yes, I lift for a fresh pedal on each one.  So the piano sounds "open," but each note is distinct, not blended.

I think where people get into trouble, style-wise, is in trying to be expressive without using the expressive devices of the time.  In other words, big swells and more gooshy (how technical) pedal etc are very expressive in much later music, but those were not the vocabulary for showing emotion in earlier music.  Many people know this, and out of respect for the music, they determine not to add anything they feel would be inappropriate, but they don't know what else to do with it, so they don't do anything!  Understandable, but here are some little easy things that can make it quite stylish right away:

* look for short phrases and slur them, making a little "landing"- not quite an accent- right before the end and tapering the last note of it so it's shorter AND softer

* look for little sigh figures:  two notes with the second just a bit lower, that you can land on and then taper the same way

* look for places where a listener unfamiliar with the piece would lose the thread of it, and bring out something to help them find their way

* look at the bass line as if you were a cellist-- just a tendency! not always the case, but very often you can make something beautiful happen this way.  Would a cellist slur eighth notes that are very far apart?  Nowaways, they certainly can (Brahms), but Baroque bows were shorter, so they were much more likely to lift/move the bow between large intervals.   If you do this, you bring out a very interesting character right away.  If a cellist had sigh figures close together, then big intervals, he would probably slur the sighs, making charming little groups of two, then a staccato or lift for the jumping note... you get the idea.

* in 3/4 pieces, where you feel a natural strong accent on the downbeats, look for any opportunity NOT to accent the downbeat:  places (esp. at candences) where there's a chord or dissonance on beat two, and bring out the hemiola.

I think you can go a lot of different ways in Baroque pieces as long as you reflect what's really happening in the music:  the motives, the contrasts etc.  It probably isn't possible to play it in such a way that no one would ever get upset, though, because people care about the music so much, and have such strong and differing opinions!  So I think we have to just know the tendencies and be expressive in those ways, then follow our own lights.     

Good luck!