Bach Technique

[MikeLauwrie]

Right well I'm learning movement's 4 and 5 from Bach's 2nd Partita. I have to for an exam.

I don't usually play anything earlier than Beethoven and here in lies the problem: I'm aware that there is a style to playing Bach which is different to later stuff.

I know that you generally don't use pedal. But what other stuff is there to look out for? What would an academic's view be?

[comme_le_vent]

an academic's view may have no value.
some people think bach should be played metronomically and with minimal expression. i think the opposite.
the main thing to remember is to play it how you feel it sounds best, and to ignore such stupid suggestions.

[squinchy]

My teacher says to play the left hand a bit stronger than usual since Bach isn't melody and accompaniment and to sometimes play the left hand with a slight "bounce" or detachment.

[bernhard]

Here are a few suggestions:

1.      Get the CD of the partitas played by Rosalyn Tureck (Phillips, Great pianists of the 20th century, vol. 93). She was not only one of the greatest Bach interpreter of all times, but also a peerless scholar who was awarded 5 doctorates from American and English universities on recognition of her work on Bach interpretation. This should give you a pretty good idea of what a “correct” interpretation of this work sounds like. Then for contrast, listen to the following: Glenn Gould (Sony), Angela Hewitt (Hyperion), Richard Goode (nonesuch), Martha Argerich (DG). This should give you a good idea of the range of deviation form the norm that is acceptable.

2.      Pedal should be used sparingly (there is no need to completely avoid it). Just remember that it is there to sustain sound in the rare occasions when it is impossible to keep legato with fingers alone, and to add colouring in specific places. Your teacher should be able to guide and help you here. Personally I would use no pedal on the rondo, but the Sarabande may sound too dry without it.

3.      Invest some time researching old dances. The partitas are after all dance collections, so you want to convey the rhythm excitement of a dance when playing them. Tureck actually went to the trouble to take dance classes so that she would be able to dance a sarabande and so on. She said that the music actually fits the dance pretty well, and she was in no doubt that Bach intended these pieces to accompany dancers. Think of a Waltz. Do you think you would be able to play a waltz properly if you had no idea what the dance was like? Likewise, you need to get an idea of what a Sarabande and a rondo look like, feel like, what the moves are and so on.

4.      This is contrapuntual music. So both melodic lines must be given equal importance (both the Sarabande and the rondo are in two voices). It is not necessary to detach the left hand as you suggested. This is a broad generalization. Personally I play the sarabande with both voices (hands) legato, and the rondo with both voices detached. The nature of the music and the score itself suggest it.

5.      Bach’s music has a “clever” side to it. It is not about a tune and an accompaniment. It is about a motif (a little fragment of melody) that is varied and developed in all sorts of ways. Invest some time analysing the score. See how the motif gets inverted, augmented, modulated, contrapuntually inverted and so on. Marvel at the skill with which Bach was able to write two pages of music with a simple sequence of five or six notes. The challenge for the performer is to bring this cleverness to life. But if you are not aware of it, you will not be able to bring it up.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[erik-]

When playing Bach, how do you determine which notes should be played detached and which are to played legato ?

[MikeLauwrie]

Well as I say this isn't an area I know a lot about however: I was talking to a music teacher at college who was saying that if you have a group of 4 quavers then you play the first 2 legato then the next to semi staccato.

[bernhard]

if you have a group of 4 quavers then you play the first 2 legato then the next to semi staccato.

Why?  

[MikeLauwrie]

Because apparently that's just how you play it!

[Clare]

Hey, I'm playing the sinfonia from this partita!
I've only sight read the rest of the partita a couple of times, so I don't feel quite informed enough to give anything other than vague advice.
As Bernhard said, this is a dance. I would approach it in quite a different way to, say, a WTC prelude and fugue. While each dance will have its own characteristic, I think (I could be wrong here) that on the whole they will generally be light-hearted in character so they have to move along and be kind of, well, boppy. If you did some research, you'll probably find out all sorts of interesting things about them that will inform your playing.
I think pedal is fine, but be sparing I guess. I'm not sure where you could use it because I'm not familiar enough with it (though I should be, really).
I agree with what the academic said in that quavers should be semi-staccato but I don't agree that they should always be 2 legato, then 2 detached. The way I treated the sinfonia was to play 1 detached, then 3 legato generally, but depending what was going on, I would sometimes flip that around or play all 4 detached or half-and-half. Because these are dances my opinion is you can be really playful with what you're doing in terms of detached and legato notes. I sometimes change the ratio of detached to legato notes even when I'm playing the theme again. This is, however, only my opinion and I'm just a student. But no-one's complained about the way I play it yet so it must be ok.  
OK. That's all I've got to say for now. I hope I helped a bit.

[n_n]

Sorry about bringing back this antique thread. I have a Q on Bach and was searching before asking. Since I came across this thread, I thought I might as well just reply to it instead of starting a new one...

K, I'm trying to play the Bach Partita No. 6. I haven't played Bach since I was a kid cuz back then I hated it. Now I'm starting to get addiced listening to Bach and decided to play some...    I vaguely remember that my teacher back then told me to play Bach's notes semi-staccato w/o pedal. I looked at the score of Partita No. 6 and found it too cruel to be played that way - almost impossible! From what I read here, it really depends on what piece one's playing. Also, I watched Gould's interpretation on video. Looks like he played a lot more notes than written on the score, lol...  I'm afraid I've only heard Gould play this piece. Should I try to follow the notes he played? I mean is it necessary?

I'm hoping to get some ideas about playing this Partita, particularly on the semi-staccato and pedal issues.

Thanks so much!!!

[leonidas]

an academic's view may have no value.
some people think bach should be played metronomically and with minimal expression. i think the opposite.
the main thing to remember is to play it how you feel it sounds best, and to ignore such stupid suggestions.

Yeah, I know what you mean.

[m]

Yeah, I know what you mean.

How cute!!! I am just about to cry  
Isn't it nice to be in agreement with your own ideas?

[n_n]

ummm... okay... that's confusing...  guess i'll just have to use my own ears + judgement...

[prongated]

How cute!!! I am just about to cry  
Isn't it nice to be in agreement with your own ideas?

ROFLMAO!!!

ummm... okay... that's confusing... guess i'll just have to use my own ears + judgement...

...good idea...and no, I wouldn't worry about what Glenn Gould does - he's in another dimension metaphorically and [possibly] literally.

[counterpoint]

I'm hoping to get some ideas about playing this Partita, particularly on the semi-staccato and pedal issues.

There is this strange idea, that pianists should make the piano sound like a harpsichord 

Bach has not only composed music for harpsichord, he also has composed music for organ, for string and wind instruments, for orchestra, for singers (soloists and choir). And Bach uses the same type of melodic lines for all these instruments and voices. So why should one play his music on the piano different from how it is played on a violin or sung by a choir?

The pedal on the piano is used generally to make the sound more colorful and Bach's music should be played as colorful as possible. Not as dry as possible.

[bachapprentice]

I would recommend listening to Glenn Gould.  He was one of the greatest Bach interperters.

[rc]

I heard an interview with Murray Perahia on CBC where he said he didn't like Gould's contrapuntal approach of making the voices more or less equal because it weakened the underlying harmony...  Or something to that effect.

It got me thinking, that maybe the idea of playing each voice equally might be misguided?  Of course Bach wrote contrapuntally, but to take it so literally.  In many cases I think it's easier to listen to by letting a certain voice to the forefront and subjugating the others as elaborate, excellently crafted harmony...

But I'm just thinking out loud here, haven't gotten around to exploring the idea so much.  I wanted to do a taste-test and compare Gould vs Perahia but the library had neither, I'll probably have to order recordings off the internet.  Perhaps explore some non-keyboard Bach as counterpoint says

[jakev2.0]

Gould is the supreme Bach technician.  His style has influenced, and continues to influence, several generations of pianists in Russia and elsewhere. Gould is the standard of perfection in Bach playing against whom all others are judged. 

Others who have achieved a great deal of finish in the playing of Bach: Gavrilov, Weissenberg, Argerich.

[ramseytheii]

I heard an interview with Murray Perahia on CBC where he said he didn't like Gould's contrapuntal approach of making the voices more or less equal because it weakened the underlying harmony...  Or something to that effect.

It got me thinking, that maybe the idea of playing each voice equally might be misguided?  Of course Bach wrote contrapuntally, but to take it so literally.  In many cases I think it's easier to listen to by letting a certain voice to the forefront and subjugating the others as elaborate, excellently crafted harmony...

But I'm just thinking out loud here, haven't gotten around to exploring the idea so much.  I wanted to do a taste-test and compare Gould vs Perahia but the library had neither, I'll probably have to order recordings off the internet.  Perhaps explore some non-keyboard Bach as counterpoint says

Gould's aesthetic, I think, was a strange combination of ancient and modern (this is why Stravinsky courted him, hoping he would play his works).  On the one hand, he often treats the piano like a harpsichord, playing all the voices almost exactly equally, not varying his attack; on the other hand, he employs a fantastical imagination that doesn't have a counterpart on the harpsichord (listen to Variation 15 from the 1980 Goldbergs), and achieves an austerity that the harpsichord, with its constant ringing overtones and jingling-jangling mechanism, can't produce.

I don't agree with Perahia, though it sounds right in a theoretical sense.  I definitely feel the harmony very strongly in all his Bach recordings.  Perahia also claimed that Schoenberg was music for the eye, not for the ear, so apparently he and I disagree on many inessential topics. 

Bach, it has been suggested, wrote much of his music not intending it for specific performance.  Works like the Goldberg Variations, the Well-Tempered Clavier, or the Art of the Fugue especially, are catalogic works that don't seem to have a place in our knowledge of public music-making in that time.  They are in many ways, the deepest kind of theoretical works.  If played on harpsichord, there is no possibility for highlighting one voice over another, there just isn't.  They are automatically equal.  The clavichord offers only a very small range of nuance, and the organ cannot provide the contrast that one would desire in the canons, for instance.

Bach's music is never just melody and accompaniment.  I honestly can't think of a single piece that works that way, even the organ chorale preludes, based on solid, familiar melodies, have distinct lines besides the chorale (think Wachet auf...).  For all the research they have done on how music was experienced in that time, the answer still lies, and will always lie, in the aesthetic of whoever is interpreting the music.  Pieces like Goldberg Variations supply a huge range of idiosyncratic performances (thinking of GOuld, Nikolaeva, Feltsman, Schiff, Gavrilov). 

There's something elemental about them that allows them to be manipulated, but at the same time remain intact.  If you have doubts about voicing, the best thing you can do is listen to a huge range of performers, and experiment for yourself.  Above all else we have to define and satisfy our own desires, and not a pre-determined definition.

Just some rambling,
Walter Ramsey

[counterpoint]

Of course Bach wrote contrapuntally, but to take it so literally.  In many cases I think it's easier to listen to by letting a certain voice to the forefront and subjugating the others as elaborate, excellently crafted harmony...

It's very interesting in Bach's music, that there is not polyphony in one piece and homophony in another - but it's always mixed. So you have to decide for every note, if it's only a filling note for the harmony or if it has some voicing function too. For example, the Fuge in D Major (WTC I) is a very homophonic work, but all characteristics of a fuge are there. Then the G Minor Fugue (WTC I also) is very polyphonic, but if you hear it, it sounds like a choral hymn. So there is no general answer to "how to play Bach Fugues".