What's your favourite Bach?

[steviesteps]

Does what it says on the tin, what's your favourite Bach?

[point of grace]

I love his inspired music, because of course not all of his music was inspired... so i like his Partita No. 1 and his choral Jesu, joy of men desiring. Many others too.....

[thalberg]

Probably the Goldberg Variations.  When I was 16, that was the piece that made me decide to give my life to music.  When I was 27, playing that piece was one of the great joys of my life.

[kolts]

[jcabraham]

The Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro, BWV 998.
The Ste. Anne Fugue.
The Pièce d'Orgue in G Major BWV 572.
Wenn-wir-in-höchsten-Nöten-sein, from the Orgelbuchlein.
The Agnus Dei from the B-minor Mass.

[camstrings]

The Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro, BWV 998.
The Ste. Anne Fugue.
The Pièce d'Orgue in G Major BWV 572.
Wenn-wir-in-höchsten-Nöten-sein, from the Orgelbuchlein.
The Agnus Dei from the B-minor Mass.

Interesting that you mention BWV 998. Do you mean the keyboard version or the guitar transcription? I know only the guitar one played by John Williams or Paul Galbraith. Both are worth hearing. Galbraith is quite fast in the Prelude. His 8string guitar sounds mighty impressive.

[jcabraham]

998 is also played by keyboardists. It's designation is "for the lute or clavicembalo" and there is some evidence that Bach intended it or at least played it on a lute-harpsichord, a harpsichord strung in gut.  Wanda Landowska, certainly no lutenist, called the PFA "a perfect jewel."  You can find recordings for piano by Sebestyn (Naxos), Leonhardt, Moroney, and (my favorite) Kenneth Gilbert. You can lookup recordings of it at jsbach.org.

Jim

[thalbergmad]

Bach is trash.

His works are far better in transcription

Thal

[keyboardclass]

Well, thank God Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin didn't agree!  ...or are they trash too?

[jcabraham]

Bach is trash.

His works are far better in transcription

Thal

Troll.

[thalbergmad]

Troll.

Just bored to death with "favourite" threads.

Does this provide you with a problem??

Thal

[ahinton]

Bach is trash.

And I'm an Albanian of part-Mozambican, part-Bolivian extraction...

His works are far better in transcription

He was himself a transcriber of considerable accomplishment, yet not that many of his own works have been transcribed by others...

Best,

Alistair

[orangesodaking]

My favorite Bach? It's a tie for my favorite Bach:

Either Johann Sebastion or P.D.Q.

[point of grace]

Bach Transcriptions??? you mean like playing a bach sonata for klavier and violin transcribed into piano and saxophone?

[camstrings]

998 is also played by keyboardists. It's designation is "for the lute or clavicembalo" and there is some evidence that Bach intended it or at least played it on a lute-harpsichord, a harpsichord strung in gut.  Wanda Landowska, certainly no lutenist, called the PFA "a perfect jewel."  You can find recordings for piano by Sebestyn (Naxos), Leonhardt, Moroney, and (my favorite) Kenneth Gilbert. You can lookup recordings of it at jsbach.org.

Jim

Thanks Jim for that information.
Currently rather like Prelude & Fugue BWV898 as played/sung by Mr. Gould: such an upbeat piece not so different to the PFA.(Especially love the flourish at 4'37: laugh out loud stuff.)

[liordavid]

I like the well tempered clavier but so much in a key diffucult to read.

[max747]

I like his chromatic fantasie and fugue it's kind of like Bach for those who don't like Bach

[cpessimist]

I like his chromatic fantasie and fugue it's kind of like Bach for those who don't like Bach

someone's watched glenn gould videos...

also, my favorite right now is either Jesu, like the first or second person said, or maybe the fugue in wtc 2 in e-flat major.  I cannot wait to be able to have the skill to play that.

[pianowolfi]

From Johann Sebastian (which, as I suppose, you're relating to):
All Piano (harspichord) Toccatas
And the Air from Orchestral Suite No.3 (BWV 1068)

[mike1515]

I love the BWV 848 i'm working on (prelude and fugue 3 WTC1)
I also like the 1st prelude and fugue in C major of the WTC2.

And hello everyone, I'm new here 

[weissenberg2]

Goldberg variations, art of fugue, WTC, keyboard suites, keyboard concerti, brandenberg concerti, and some of his violin works and choral works.

[jagm]

I love all by Bach, but i have to say the partita no 2 in c minor

[trix]

His grand minor keyed "X+Fugue" organ works give me the transcendent thought/feeling that this is the closest one could come to proof of the existence of some "God".

I also love the Ciaccona from the 2nd Partita for violin solo and the 1st Sonata (g minor) for same and the "double" concerto for 2 violins; also, the 2nd English Suite (back to piano) and the 2nd Partita come to immediate mind as well as the WTC, AOF and Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue.

Playing violin as well as piano, I've been fortunate enough to play most of my favorite Bach. On piano tho, I find him the hardest composer to play; and the one that will yield the most solid technical rewards if practised along side scales and arps.  It would seriously be easier for me to put a Chopin or Liszt Etude together than a polyphonic, contrapuntal Bach work, on piano that is; interestingly, and curiously, I find him relatively easy on violin?.....

[redbaron]

The Goldberg Variations by a country mile.

The Well-Tempered Clavier
Keyboard Concerto in D minor BWV 1052
Sheep May Safely Graze
Sleepers Wake
English Suite No 6

[invictious]

I would actually love to list out my favourite Bach. Sadly, my brain is too small. Thus, I am unable to play Bach.

I quite like Sheep May Safely Graze though..
Of course, his Unaccompanied Cello Suites are my favourite pieces to play on Cello, which is interesting because I cannot play Bach on piano!
His Toccata in E minor is sublimeeeeeee.

Other than that, I really must get into Bach more.