Favourite pieces from WTK?

[fnork]

This has probably been discussed before, but anyway...
I've played some Bach, but would like to learn some more. I've played prelud & fugue in c-minor and the g-major prelude, from the first book. I love these pieces, especially the g-major one.
But I would like to learn some more pieces and don't know where to start. I haven't heard a recording of WTK yet, so if someone could give me suggestions - preludes and fugues from WTK that you like - I would appreciate it.
Thanks

[bernhard]

I like them all. Why not learn them all ? Here is my personal opinion of an order for learning them (progressive order of difficulty).

1. no. 15 in  G (Book II)
2. no. 6 in Dm
3. no. 21 in Bb
4. no. 10 in Em
5. no. 20 in Am (Book II)
6. no. 11 in F
7. no. 2 in Cm
8. no. 9 in E
9. no. 13 in F#
10. no. 21 in Bb (Book II)
11. no. 6 in Dm (Book II)
12. no. 19 in A (Book II)
13. no. 11 in F (Book II)
14. no. 19 in A
15. no. 14 in F#m
16. no. 18 in G#m
17 no. 2 in Cm (Book II)
18. no. 5 in D
19. no. 7 in Eb
20. no. 14 in F#m (Book II)
21. no. 7 in Eb (Book II)
22. no. 1 in C
23. no. 17 in Ab
24. no. 13 in F# (Book II)
25. no. 15 in G
26. no. 12 in Fm (Book II)
27. no. 1 in C (Book II)
28. no. 24 in Bm (Book II)
29. no. 10 in Em (Book II)
30. no. 16 in Gm
31. no. 5 in D (Book II)
32. no. 18 in G#m (Book II)
33. no. 24 in Bm
34. no. 9 in E (Book II)
35. no. 4 in C#m (Book II)
36. no. 23 in B
37. no. 3 in C# (Book II)
38. no. 12 in Fm
39. no. 3 in C#
40. no. 8 in D#m (Book II)
41. no. 22 in Bbm
42. no. 17 in Ab (Book II)
43. no 4 in C#m
44. no. 8 in D#m
45. no. 20 in Am
46. no. 22 in Bbm (Book II)
47. no. 16 in Gm (Book II)
48. no. 23 in B (Book II)


I have already posted this list elsewhere, but I am posting it again since I would be interested in alternative opinions (like Hmoll’s alternative to my list of progressive Beethoven’s sonatas).

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[alextryan]

I've been gearing up to learn a piece from the WTC also.  My favorite is:

#3 from book one.

I enjoy both the prelude and the fugue, which is something I have a harder time saying for most of the others.  

Don't learn #2 from book one -- way way over played.  Same for #1.

I also love #8 - very slow, very thoughtful.  Difficult for that reason.  

The other one I'd like to learn is #13 -- you may find it pedantic at first, but give it a try.  There's a lot of richness there.

[shasta]

I have a special place in my heart for the F# from WTC1.  It was among the pieces I played in my very first piano competition when I was a kid.  

[rohansahai]

My personal favourite is #16 from Book II. I have the entire set by Richter, but ironically, the Elena Kuschnerova video of the same piece is better than any other interpretation I've heard.
But they are all great pieces! Tough to single any one of them out!

[comme_le_vent]

im gonna learn some, learning them all is a HUGE commitment - not fo moi

[elmo]

A fave is Fugue #8 from Book 1, in D-sharp minor. A beautiful, haunting melody, that is wonderfully developed using 3 voices. Some tricky fingering occasionally, but one of the best fugues. The Prelude, in E-flat minor, is also an understated beauty.

A particularly lovely Prelude is #22, Book1, in B-flat minor. Gorgeous chord changes. And its accompanying fugue contains 5 lovely voices...

I played them for end-of-year exam juries at the Eastman School of Music. Have just this month learned the Bach "Little" Fugue in G minor (Briskier transcription), that also has a haunting, minor-key melody, developed in a 3 voice fugue...

[bernhard]

More favourites from the WTC on these threads:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2974.msg25999.html#msg25999

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,3835.msg34773.html#msg34773

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Nightscape]

I absolutely love the F# minor one from book 2 as well as the Bb minor one from book 2.  They're both such reflective pieces!

[quasimodo]

I'm not (yet) a pianist but I am an addictive listener of Bach's WTC. My favorites to listen are mainly those in major mood , paticularly :

From Book I :

N°1 in C (maybe overplayed but still magical, shame on you alextryan)
N°5 in D
N°15 in G
N°19 in A

from Book II

N°3 in C#
N°5 in D
N°7 in Eb
N°9 in E
N°21 in Bb

Anyway, the whole work is ultimate, great music.

As I know almost nothing about piano I might be completely wrong, but Bernhard, I can't understand how you place the N°23 (II) as the less difficult one ? The prelude requires velocity and tone, the fugue has a very long subject and again needs velocity Just by ear I would think that N°5 (II) or N° 9 (II) are much easier than this one ...

But once again I don't play so I don't figure out the technical difficulties of each piece.

[zemos]

you missunderstood him, the order in from the easiest to the hardest. in other words, he thinks that the no. 23 in B from book II is the hardest! and yep it is hard...

[quasimodo]

Well I must be drunk. I meant the No 15 (II), BWV 882. It souds very hard too.

[quasimodo]

By the way, who's your favorite interpreter of the WTC ?

Of course the legendary recordings from Glenn Gould and Sviatoslav Richter are big monuments, but otherwise ?

I have the recording from a young dutch pianist Ivo Janssen who seems to be unknown. He created his own label to record the complete keyboard works of JSB. I find his WTC really convincing.

On some other thread, someone talks about Keith Jarret's versatilty and I find his WTC 1 absolutely decent. I didn't hear his WTC 2 played  on harpsichord.

[Ludwig Van Rachabji]

Learn them all! 

[faulty_damper]

By the way, who's your favorite interpreter of the WTC ?

I've fallen out of favor of Gould ever since I heard Tureck.

[m]

By the way, who's your favorite interpreter of the WTC ?

My favorite is Samuil Feinberg. Some of Fridrich Gulda are exellent.

[waldstein]

I like them all. Why not learn them all ? Here is my personal opinion of an order for learning them (progressive order of difficulty).

1. no. 15 in G (Book II)
2. no. 6 in Dm
3. no. 21 in Bb
4. no. 10 in Em
5. no. 20 in Am (Book II)
6. no. 11 in F
7. no. 2 in Cm
8. no. 9 in E
9. no. 13 in F#
10. no. 21 in Bb (Book II)
11. no. 6 in Dm (Book II)
12. no. 19 in A (Book II)
13. no. 11 in F (Book II)
14. no. 19 in A
15. no. 14 in F#m
16. no. 18 in G#m
17 no. 2 in Cm (Book II)
18. no. 5 in D
19. no. 7 in Eb
20. no. 14 in F#m (Book II)
21. no. 7 in Eb (Book II)
22. no. 1 in C
23. no. 17 in Ab
24. no. 13 in F# (Book II)
25. no. 15 in G
26. no. 12 in Fm (Book II)
27. no. 1 in C (Book II)
28. no. 24 in Bm (Book II)
29. no. 10 in Em (Book II)
30. no. 16 in Gm
31. no. 5 in D (Book II)
32. no. 18 in G#m (Book II)
33. no. 24 in Bm
34. no. 9 in E (Book II)
35. no. 4 in C#m (Book II)
36. no. 23 in B
37. no. 3 in C# (Book II)
38. no. 12 in Fm
39. no. 3 in C#
40. no. 8 in D#m (Book II)
41. no. 22 in Bbm
42. no. 17 in Ab (Book II)
43. no 4 in C#m
44. no. 8 in D#m
45. no. 20 in Am
46. no. 22 in Bbm (Book II)
47. no. 16 in Gm (Book II)
48. no. 23 in B (Book II)


I have already posted this list elsewhere, but I am posting it again since I would be interested in alternative opinions (like Hmoll’s alternative to my list of progressive Beethoven’s sonatas).

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

Bernhard - Two Questions

1. I assume this must be the order including the fugues. Do you have such a list, having just the preludes.

2. Is it important to learn the prelude and the fugue together ? I feel the fugues are many shades tougher, so would it be better to learn a set of preludes before attempting the easiest fugue?

[super_ardua]

No. If you play the fugue alone,  it starts in mid-air,  and I find that irritating.  Learn the prelude and fugue at the same time.

[Clare]

Personally, I too would prefer to learn both the prelude and fugue, but I don't see why you couldn't just learn a prelude or just a fugue because Bach often didn't compose the pairs together anyway. Sometimes he would grab a prelude from somewhere, grab a fugue he wrote a while back, make them in the same key and modify them a bit. So, if he didn't always write them at the same time, I guess you could make an argument for not learning them at the same time.

I've just started learning no. 3 in book 2. It's so ace. The prelude sounds like the start of a hair band ballad.

[bernhard]

1. I assume this must be the order including the fugues. Do you have such a list, having just the preludes.

Yes, that is correct. The fugues are so much more difficult than the preludes that you could say that the list is really a difficulty list for the fugues.

2. Is it important to learn the prelude and the fugue together ? I feel the fugues are many shades tougher, so would it be better to learn a set of preludes before attempting the easiest fugue?

Modern tradition (here is an oxymoron!) is to always play them together. However this was not all the case in Bach’s time (as Clare has pointed out).

Keep the following in mind:

1.   The WTC (as indeed most of Bach’s keyboard music) was never intended for public performance. It was originally intended for study and private enjoyment. Study here means not only practising and acquisition of technique, but also musical understanding and composition. Ideal performance conditions would be two people (perhaps student and teacher) in a room, one at the keyboard, the other with the score in his lap. In this way all of the intricacies of the piece could be followed.

2.   In Bach’s time (and even after) the preludes were not necessarily paired with the fugues (when playing), in fact 11 of the Book 1 preludes were written separately in WF Bach little notebook – it was only afterwards that Bach attached fugues to them and included them in the WTC I.

I would also suggest that you read

Ralph Kirkpatrick “Interpreting Bach’s Well Tempered Clavier” (Yale)

Where many of these issues are discussed at length.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[rohansahai]

By the way, who's your favorite interpreter of the WTC ?

I really like Mieczyslaw Horzowski's set although i just have the Book I. Gives a good fight to Gould and Richter IMO.

[quasimodo]

I like them all. Why not learn them all ? Here is my personal opinion of an order for learning them (progressive order of difficulty).

(...)

22. no. 1 in C

(...)

I have already posted this list elsewhere, but I am posting it again since I would be interested in alternative opinions (like Hmoll’s alternative to my list of progressive Beethoven’s sonatas).

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

I always thought this one (BWV 846) is the easiest, Bernhardt, could you explain why you consider it as a "middle difficulty" ?

[bernhard]

I always thought this one (BWV 846) is the easiest, Bernhardt, could you explain why you consider it as a "middle difficulty" ?

Purely subjective opinion.

I consider that as a “teaching list”. If I was to teach the complete set, that would be the order I would use, because – in my subjective opinion – mastering one leads to mastery of the next. The difficulty relates mostly to the fugues, since in general the preludes are not that difficult. I agree with you, the prelude is arguably the easiest, although a lot of pianists find it really hard to play it well (and there is a tantalising number of options in terms of interpretation and almost nothing in terms of clues to what Bach had in mind), but the fugue is not that easy.

But if you consider it the easiest, that is fine. As I said many times before, I would be most interested in seeing other people’s lists. In a similar thread dealing with Beethoven sonatas, four different lists have been proposed, which shows how the perception of difficulty can be subjective. Such divergent lists are interesting as much in what they agree, as in what they disagree.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[Alde]

Trying to pick a prelude and fugue is like going to the ice cream store and picking which one to eat - so many to chose from.
You know, it all depends on your mood.  There are ones that are fast (dance inspired), medium tempo and slow (religious/solemn).
With regards to the fugues, you might want to start off with 3 voices.  And then perhaps the next fugue will have 4 voices.

[quasimodo]

I agree with you, the prelude is arguably the easiest, although a lot of pianists find it really hard to play it well (and there is a tantalising number of options in terms of interpretation and almost nothing in terms of clues to what Bach had in mind), but the fugue is not that easy.

But if you consider it the easiest, that is fine. As I said many times before, I would be most interested in seeing other people’s lists. In a similar thread dealing with Beethoven sonatas, four different lists have been proposed, which shows how the perception of difficulty can be subjective. Such divergent lists are interesting as much in what they agree, as in what they disagree.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

It would be incorrect to say I "consider it the easiest", for that I should have learned the whole stuff but I hardly play the piano ... I was just referring to what i heard from people.

The prelude, no problem, it's "easy" otherwise it wouldn't be in the AMB notebook and I wouldn't be able to "play" it. The fugue is complex in its musical structure but, to play, I don't find it too hard. I made an attempt to it (which probably was a very stupid idea, considering my overall level which is not far from zero) and yet at bar 5-6 it seems ok. But maybe I'm going to explode at the next steps.

I'm a guitarist at the origin and with this instrument I always dissociate the musical content and the execution of a piece. That's the same principle I apply right for re-beginning the piano.