Bach Prelude and Fugue in B-flat minor from WTC book II

[imbetter]

Comments and critique are more than welcome.

[furtwaengler]

I listened to this. I always thought this would be good coupled with the F major English Suite. You play it pretty well. The only thing I'd say is sometimes the great care you are taking with evening out the note lengths in the contrapuntal texture starts to get a little monotonous after a while. Try singing it more.

[andhow04]

i just finished this prelude and fugue myself, and personally i find the fugue the most difficult among all the ones i have played (46). in terms of its shape, the articulation you need, the very complex rhythm in a 3/2 meter which makes for a very widely spaced bar, and the chromaticism, all combine to make an amazingly hard fugue that requires virtuosity, like the a minor from book I, but maybe is less evident to the audience what all goes into it. bravo for playing such a challenging piece and i think doing a pretty good job at it.

the prelude is really missing the cut time, it plods along at a rather stiff quarter note tempo. i wonder if you are going for some Richter-esque statue-like tempo. he does articulate the quarters as you do, but you can feel in his recording the cut time beat, which is very important to capture the feeling of grace and elegance. the voicing is thoughtful.

i think the fugue also suffers from a certain heaviness, but less so. the subject i think is often over-accentuated and it takes away from teh shape of the line. it seems to me that in the chromatic countersubject, you don't really apply any line, but play each one exactly the same, which to my mind, just weighs the whole thing down. that said i do like the actual tempo, but the phrasing feels a bit stiff. perhaps here also you are thinking too much about the quarter note, when the meter calls for the half note to be the prominent organizer.

there's a wrong note in m44 but could have been a slip. overall it could probably use a little more variety, in terms of the dramatic structure, but i wonder if you are at all influenced by Richter, and would be curious to know if that's the case.

in the fugue i think the voicing is very good, and you handled very complex situations like ms 77 and 78 well.
her'es the link to my recording if you are interested
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=48725.0

[imbetter]

Thank you both for your comments. All of your comments just happen to be things that my teacher thought so I have been working on these issues. Andhow04, I would love to listen to yours as soon as I get a chance.

[j_menz]

I like the pace of both the prelude and the fugue, and you have enunciated the voices beautifully.

There are a few poinst where the texture is thin that you are slightly off the pulse - a slight pause before hitting the notes.

In the prelude particularly (though you might consider it for the fugue as well), if you are going to play at this pace you need to not do everything with that Bach detache that some favour - it needs more legato. Like furtwaengler said, it needs to sing more. If you want to keep the detache, you need to go faster IMO.