Why do you hate playing Bach?

[cziffra]

He invented (I think) well-tempered tuning and counter point theory.

he didn't really invent it, he just took what scant forms of it there were already and brought them into full adulthood.

i mean, the entire baroque period is considered to have ended with the death of bach...what other composer exemplifies a period so fully?  after bach, what more was there left to say?  he brought the art of counterpoint, singelhandedly, out of it's primitive childhood right through adulthood to old age and then retirement.  

[Noah]

Using the term "people" very loosely.

Intentionally.

[liszmaninopin]

Something just happened that really suprised me.  I was practicing a Bach Prelude and Fugue, and all of a sudden I realized that I was enjoying it.  Really!  Over the past couple of days, I have tried giving Bach some dedicated listening, and he sounds better every time.

[Noah]

Something just happened that really suprised me.  I was practicing a Bach Prelude and Fugue, and all of a sudden I realized that I was enjoying it.  Really!  Over the past couple of days, I have tried giving Bach some dedicated listening, and he sounds better every time.

[Dave_2004_G]

Anyone saying that Back music is 'like a computer' and 'devoid of emotion' go and listen to the chaccone - you can even listen to a piano arrangement of it if you want.  It's INCREDIBLE.

Dave

[Noah]

Anyone saying that Back music is 'like a computer' and 'devoid of emotion' go and listen to the chaccone - you can even listen to a piano arrangement of it if you want.  It's INCREDIBLE.

Dave

The piano transcription of the Chaconne is a terrible crime. Listen to the original, played by Grumiaux, Hahn, or Milstein, but do listen to the whole partita  

[Dave_2004_G]

Yeh - although I saw it in concert the other day (the Bramhs transcription) and it was still pretty magical
I'd recommend Menuhin for the Chaconne - yeh the whole partita is great, the sarabande is amazing as well but not on the same level as the chaconne

Dave

[cziffra]

Over the past couple of days, I have tried giving Bach some dedicated listening, and he sounds better every time

My work here is done.

*Cziffra vanishes in a puff of blue smoke."

[steveolongfingers]

okay, i think i have got it......

I just detest Bach's for Keyboard only music.
I quite injoy his brandonburg Concertos, some of the keyboard concertos and the saint mathews passion, i spent about a week figuring this out.  

But id choose Handel over Bach any day for best baroque composer!

[xtopher]

I Dont Hate To Play Bach..I Do Like It But People Is Right When They Say That Is Very Awful When You Wrong In Just A Note

[scriabinsmyman]

The main reason I don't enjoy playing Bach is because I like meaty pieces with lots of pedal and broad ranges of dynamic...it's not just Bach, but Baroque music in general...plus, Bach is impossible to memorize securely...give me a lizst concerto and a bach fugue, and i'll have the concerto memorized before the fugue- it's just something i totally suck at

[comme_le_vent]

i witnessed the bach-busoni chaconne live -played by hamelin - 'twas amazing  

i dont hate playing bach, but then again i havent tried a fugue yet  

it seems like most people dont like bach because of the texture more than anything - because every single note has a melodic- rhythmic- and harmonic importance - it is very difficult to play.
and yet to most people it doesnt sound that hard.
so in that respect it is unrewarding.

[nad]

I enjoy playing Bach.
I don't see difficulties in memorizing Bach in particular.
Statements about Bach sounding like a robot says more about one's playing skills than about Bach.
Besides, anyone who want to become a good pianist, performing pianist or musician really can't say they HATE a particular composer. Saying that is narrowminded which a musician certainly doesnt serve any good. You can prefer other composers or don't like a particular style. Being so random with words causes misunderstandings.

Another thing, playing a wrong note in Bach is just as bad as a wrong note in Mozart, in fact it can be just as bad in other pieces. So that's not a valid reason not to play Bach.

[anda]

listen the chaconne played by szeryng - live! always takes my breath away...

i hate playing bach (most of his works) cause i'm different temepered and i'll never play bach or mozart or haydn the way i can play prokofiev or bartok or skrjabin or debussy or... which doesn't mean i don't love bach! especially if played right...

[Lee]

Bach was an outstanding, brilliant genius.  At the very least he deserves our respect when referring to him.  I don't think many of your comments have been fair.  He wrote much of his piano works as teaching methods.  It in unfair and inappropriate to compare these works with that of ANY other composer from a different era.  

I was relieved when Bernhard informed posters of the kind of man he was.  Soft gentle and wishy washy he wasn't!  He was an impatient man, he demanded the highest standard from his pupils and musicans under his 'care' and would probably walk out of the room in complete disgust if he heard many of you playing his works 'like a robot' like a 'machine'.  His playing of the organ was considered 'astonishing' to his contemporaries.

All those who hate Bach, read his biography in the "Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers" series.  It is published by omnibus press.  I know it is available through musicroom.com.  

The words musical genius and boring cannot exist in the same sentence.  Its your appreciation that needs to be refined.

[xenon]

As I practice some Preludes and Fugues, I can't help to say "Argh, Bach!  Why?".  But it's good for practice.  I have to agree w/ the large hands thing, my fingers get twisted and turned in funny directions.  In a fugue I'm doing, a common pattern for fingering in the LH is either 5-4 (in a descending line).  Not fun.  However, all of the polyphonic counterpoint is cool.  I like to piece together all of the subjects, answers, and countersubjets, as well as the strettos, codettas, etc.  Smart guy, that Bach.

[comme_le_vent]

i love bach - i couldnt give a crap about him being a clever guy or his works being mathematically perfect - his music is just simply great to listen to.

i can see exactly why some people think his music is boring and unemotional - listen to schiff playing the wtc, every day, for a few months, come back and tell me you havent experienced great joy  

[anda]

i thnk he was i guy who loved life and living and children- he had 20 of them! and i personally hate pianists who play bach's works as if they were a relique, iced and stoned... they're alive! as long as you know how to listen and love them...

[faulty_damper]

Remember that in Bach's time the performer was expected to embellish on the score. That is why Gould is such a good Bach performer. It is far from robotic.

boliver

This is the reply I've been waiting for!   The best interpreter of Bach has to be Glenn Gould.  He devoted his life to it, as well.  His playing is distinct from any other pianist.

When people listen to recordings of Bach, it is almost always without embellishment.  Do you embellish Bach's works?  Most likely you don't.  So what you end up with are notes organized in a harmonic way but in a boring way.  It's similar to playing the piano with one hand playing a melody line; the piano is capable of so much more.  But this is how Bach is played: whatever is on the paper should be played as such.

NONSENSE!

Pianists who play Bach by notes aren't playing the way it was played 250 years ago.  He purposely left out dynamic markings, trills, turns, etc. because that was the duty of the performer, not the composer.

But now, everything is written out.  Whether it is ff, pp, crescendo, diminuendo, etc., it is all written out so that the performer has very little to interpret compared to Bach's works.  

Playing Bach is a true test of your own interpretational skills - something that we just don't have much of.

I know I suck playing Bach.  It hardly ever sounds right when I play him.  This is one reason why I don't like Bach as much as other composers.  But I make the distinction of how I don't like playing Bach and whether I like his works.  Those things are exclusive.

I like Bach but I'd really rather not hear someone play his works because they usaully aren't very good recordings.

[faulty_damper]

About his 20 kids:

C'mon, we'd all have just as many if your kids dropped dead like flies at the Raid factory.  The life expectancy table would show that people died linearly during that period.  Now it is not.  Now most people start dying around the age of 55, or rather, that's when it starts to waterfall untill they are all dead.

This is a testament to medical technology and that we actually take a shower more than once a month.  You would be surprised to know that Europeans took baths very irregularly and when they did, they didn't take off all their clothes!  (Remeber those old Western movies when the guys were in the tub and they were still wearing their longjohns?)  They were very unclean and smelly people and writtled with diseases.  When they came over to the Americas they killed off most of the Indians!  The indians tried unsuccesfully to get them to bathe because they were smelly and dirty people.  They themselves bathed regularly which is why they were very healthy people.

Smelly stinkty people?  That's why we wear perfume today!  

[bernhard]

This is the reply I've been waiting for!   The best interpreter of Bach has to be Glenn Gould.  .

Have you heard Rosalyn Tureck? I find her far superior to Gould (and come to think of it, Angela Hewitt as well).

[anda]

glenn gould has a very personal approach on bach - you have to love him for this, but for a "referential" interpretation i'd choose richter.