Bach - Prelude and Fugue in B-flat major, BWV866 (WTC I)

[andhow04]

the b-flat major prelude and fugue from the first book.

(3)

UPDATE: 11/16/12 i surreptitiously replaced this with a new version, as the older version was recorded badly and needed to be pushed up in volume. this one makes it more consistent sound-wise with all theother preludes and fugues

[geze]

A little fast though

[andhow04]

 

[scottmcc]

geze, is that all you have to say about this piece?  the prelude is quite fast, but Bach left us no tempo markings, and the right hand figuration is in 32nd notes.  Furthermore, my edition of the WTC (Palmer) has an editorial marking of quarter=72-80, which yields a quite snappy pace indeed.

I have several professional recordings of the WTC.  Angela Hewitt plays the prelude in 1:25.  Friedrich Gulda plays it in 1:11.  andhow plays it in 1:19.

Glenn Gould once remarked that tempo is just the vessel to contain a piece of music.

Anyway, I thought it was brilliantly played, and echo my previous comments about andhow's bach--it's just marvelous.  I wish my bach were even a 10th as good.

[andhow04]

geze, is that all you have to say about this piece?  the prelude is quite fast, but Bach left us no tempo markings, and the right hand figuration is in 32nd notes.  Furthermore, my edition of the WTC (Palmer) has an editorial marking of quarter=72-80, which yields a quite snappy pace indeed.

I have several professional recordings of the WTC.  Angela Hewitt plays the prelude in 1:25.  Friedrich Gulda plays it in 1:11.  andhow plays it in 1:19.

Glenn Gould once remarked that tempo is just the vessel to contain a piece of music.

Anyway, I thought it was brilliantly played, and echo my previous comments about andhow's bach--it's just marvelous.  I wish my bach were even a 10th as good.

thanks for the nice comments.  iw ould love to hear the Gulda, I don't hve any recordings of his bach but several other pieces i love, including some mozart concertos which are played in a really different style, to my ear.
glad you liked the tempo, i heard a very eccentric and slow recoridng on youtube by a guy called Bach Scholar who says he mathematically determines the perfect tempo for each bach piece by using the subdivions somehow... it was very sluggish..  mine might err on the fast side... but oh well. it is slower than gould

[iratior]

andhow, I have to share with you a story about this beloved, magical prelude.  It was on an overcast, drizzly afternoon on Thursday, July 14, 1960, and my sister was having her piano lesson.   Usually, to the extent that our attention wasn't focused on the music, it was on the latest conflict that the teacher, Mrs. H., had had with her daughter.  But what attracted our attention that day instead was that Paddy, our cocker spaniel, was terribly nervous.  To touch him was to feel him trembling so fast it was like a vibration.  A few minutes later, a very severe thunderstorm hit.  It was quite unexpected, because Grandpa always swore that it never rained on Thursday afternoon between one and four o'clock, when his friends, the Henwoods, went shopping.  But it was almost like a hurricane, ripping a big branch off the Chinese elm tree in the back yard.  And what piece was my sister learning to play?  Yes.  This prelude. It was almost as if a lesson in piano morphed into a lesson in witchcraft.  And it sounds so much like a summer thunderstorm:  first we have the patter of the rain in the thirty-second notes, then the thunder of the chords.  I just played it over the phone for a friend, and she agrees.  So thanks for keeping it fresh in people's minds.

[andhow04]

what a memory!@ h ow did you remember the exact date of the piao lesson? thanks for sharing the story, hope you enjoyed the recording
!

[iratior]

I did enjoy the recording, and thanks for reading and commenting on the story.  As for how I remember so much -- it's just that some times in one's life seem so pivotal that all the details stay in place.  Some time I will have to write at length about my piano lessons.  Mrs. H. really was a wonderful teacher;  she studied in the Paris Conservatoire and with Moritz Rosenthal.