Prelude and Fugue no. 17 in A-flat major from WTC Book I - Bach

[frogtester]

Hello! I'm kind of new here (have lurked off and on for some time) and decided to upload a piece today. I've never really recorded myself before, and I found myself much more conscious of my mistakes haha. Anyways, here we go.

Prelude:

Fugue:

[zeusje]

Hi, I did not notice mistakes when listening, what I noticed was a steady rhytm which I liked, in general I just liked the recordings, do you play without pedal?

[frogtester]

Thanks! I tried to get all the notes right, but I still feel there is interpretive stuff I'm missing. And no, I didn't use very much pedal on this piece.

[lukediv]

hi,

first of all, i really enjoyed this one. Usually i dont LOVE bach but this work i found really light and quite happy and i think you're recording showed that. I hope you were having fun while playing it

One thing i did notice, and i may be incorrect because I'm not really familiar with this work is at about 1:15 in the prelude, there is a diffucult passage and your tempo slowed just a little bit, compared to the tempo it was before this passage....

besides that small blip on the radar, i REALLY enjoyed it and you should be happy with this one.

sweet yamaha btw, sounded great

[johnlewisgrant]

You've already mastered it completely and utterly....

Here's why.... you've put your fingers under one of the greatest fugues ever written (yes.... forget about the prelude.... that's just the first (very small) course before the meat and potatoes.) 

And I think you know that...

And you've got the tempo just right, as it happens.

So you're there... it's yours!

Tune up that Yamaha and think BIG with this phenomenal fugue!

John L. Grant   

[j_menz]

Thanks! I tried to get all the notes right, but I still feel there is interpretive stuff I'm missing.

You pretty much did (couple of minor bloopers, but I'm sure you know that).

I think there is interpretative stuff missing - it's a very harpsichordy operformance (if that makes sense).  I think you can use a greater dynamic range and a greater variety of touch.  Have a play around with it - you know it well enough to try lots of things - and just see what you like.  This is a matter of taste, of course, and I'm sure there are a number of Bach "purists" out there who would love your approach as it stands.

Oh, and get that piano tuned!

[brogers70]

You've certainly got the notes down. This is such a wonderful P&f; I've been working on it for a couple of months. They are both so orchestral, maybe a baroque orchestra with period instruments, but orchestral all the same.

I think the prelude is coming along well. In measures 9-14 you bring out the motif in the LH nicely. The RH in measure 11 is a little awkward, and maybe you could work hands separate on those measures for a while. I think that the peak of the phrases in the LH is actually on the 2nd beat of each bar while that in the RH is on the 3rd beat of each bar. Practicing HS for a good while will help you phrase the two parts independently, I think. Then the issue in mm26-31 is the same except that the hands are reversed. You give a nice break at the cadence in measure 35. After that I agree that the texture should feel a bit light, but I think you slow down too much. Then, for me the climax of the prelude is the section in 12ths in mm39-40 and from there to the end I wouldn't fade away as much as you do.

For the fugue, you seem to have good fingerings down. I'd maybe spend some more time HS and even on separate voices to work on phasing the individual lines. For me there are two main rhythmic motifs, a very plain, unaccented set of 6 eight notes and a long note for the subject, but then a shorter pattern of three eights beginning off the beat with a stress on the second of the three. This is most apparent in the bass line in mm 11-12, but is present even in the counter subject in measure 3, in the alto voice in mm14-15, the soprano voice in mm19-20, and elsewhere. You can bring it out by a little crescendo, or if that's not harpsichordy enough for you, then by making the third of the eighths more staccato. I'd do some work on individual voices to bring out the contrast between those two rhythmic motifs.

Measure 10 is a royal pain to try to make the tenor statement of the theme clear. You're almost there, I think. It helped me to play that over and over, leaving out some of the notes in other voices until I could clearly hear the theme. It's also important to release the notes in the tenor voice as written and not to hold them beyond their real value. It's the hardest measure of the piece, I think.

The alto entrance in mm13-14 could be clearer; practicing RH alone will help. In mm19-20 sustaining the tenor long notes Db, C, Bb, A natural is very important. Doing finger swaps 5-4 will help - it works to do the swap when the alto voice hits F for the second time in each sequence. I like the way you did mm 24-26. In mm27-28 I'd use less pedal. Also you can distinguish the soprano and alto voices by having a slightly different volume for each, say soprano mf and alto mp. Obviously the bass entrance in m27 is a high point. Then I think the tension should ease a bit coming into the cadence on the second beat of m30. From there to 33 would, I think clearly be a crescendo had Bach written it for strings, I don't think you need to hold back there.

I'm still not sure what to do on the 4th beat of m33. The cadence implies a bit of a break after the Ab in the soprano, but the fact that it's the first note of the final entrance of the subject suggests you ought to articulate it as you've articulated the subject all along. I wouldn't decrescendo as much as you do at the end.

Take all my comments with a grain of salt; I'm completely an amateur. But I really love this Prelude and Fugue.

Bill

[frogtester]

Thank you everyone for your comments, and for taking the time to analyse it so much (Bill). I agree, that measure 10 is really hard to get down. I'll definitely take your comments into consideration, and you've given me a lot to think about. I am a bit burnt out on this piece at the moment though haha, so i'll prolly come back to it in a few months.

I agree with j_menz, it is a very "harpsichordy" performance, which was kind of what I was going for, but I'm hoping to achieve kind of a mix between the two.

Thank you so much John! I can't really get the piano tuned- unfortunately it belongs to my school.