Bach - Prelude and Fugue in B major, BWV892 (WTC II)

[andhow04]

the prelude and fugue in b major from the second book.  not that anyone cares, but i'm now fInIsHeD with the WTC, having recorded all of the preludes and fugues from both books, arbritrarily following the order of the Bartok edition. it was quite an experience that i started last year in june.  i will probably have more reflections later.

this prelude is very charming and physically fun to play, it has a lot of creative technical aspects, and is a bit similar to invention style. the fugue is a stately noble theme, that subtly becomes a double fugue about a quarter into it. there's not much to say; the music speaks for itself!

for some reason bartok put this set last in his order, which is supposed to be arranged by difficulty.  this is really not the most difficult prelude and fugue in the set.  overall, probably b-flat minor from book II is the most difficult; b minor from book I has a lot of musical challenges, but physically not as demanding as b-flat from book II.

for me personally, the most difficult fugue to play well was b-flat minor from book II; the mos difficult fugue to memorize was A major from book I; the most difficult prelude to play was B-flat major from book II.

enjoy.


b major from book I:
https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=46746.0


(48)

[49410enrique]

 
Seriously, pretty incredible, it is quite an accomplishment. Congratulations!

giving it a listen shortly.

Edit
Really lovely! Wow!! Thank u for sharing and again congrats on a fine achieve,ent. I hope u will keep the whole sets in ur repertoire. I wonder can u play them all right now or have u had to put them down as u worked new ones? I wish I couldlay through all of them regularly in different sets daily like one day all moniranother day the back 24 another day all major etc. I hope u will continue exploring these as no doubt as u continue to grow and change so to will those evolve with u.

[emill]

wow! I will be the 1st one to "comment" which may not mean much as I am not a pianist but only part of that public which adores classical music.  However lately I have had a big dose of this P & F as my son Enzo has been practicing this.  In fact I have posted his rendition and wish you may comment too .....

As I have said before, if there is a person who can play Bach very well here it is you!!!!   I have always admired your feel for the composer.  Your rendition is like the teacher's to Enzo's the student.   BEAUTIFUL and full of life.

[pianovirus]

BEAUTIFUL and full of life.

I can only heartily agree! I have to "confess", your recordings have for quite some time been among my very favorite of all self-recordings I have listened to on the Internet.

When someone's playing touches me deeply (it happens not very rarely, but not very often either), I find it very hard to understand for myself, what makes it so special. especially in comparison with other good interpretations that don't leave the same mark on me. Often I think it comes down to exactly those same two impressions that emill mentioned above. In addition, in all of your recordings I have heard so far, there is another special quality in that your playing sounds like you yourself are marveling at the beauty of the music but at the same time never exaggerating, and never pushing your interpretation in front of the composition. But you also never "vanish" behind it; everything just feels in a wonderful balance. I don't know it that sounds too metaphysical, but that's how I feel about it 

I appreciate the modesty with which you have been sharing your great recordings here, but I think with this completion of the "48" (not alone that you played them all, but rather how you wonderfully you played them) you should know that some (actually, I hope a lot of) people do care about this great achievement, your art of the piano, and about enjoying (and learning from) your recordings.

So, again thank you very much for sharing all these here! In the next weeks, I will go back and listen to a few older recordings of yours (I listened to many of them, including your fantastic Goldberg variations on Youtube), but I'm still missing out on a number of the WTC recordings.

[goldentone]

Congratulations on completing both books of the WTC, Andhow!  Fine playing.

[lukediv]

Yeah, pretty amazing stuff.

congratulations on finishing all of them. what an achievement!

[andhow04]

 
Seriously, pretty incredible, it is quite an accomplishment. Congratulations!

giving it a listen shortly.

Edit
Really lovely! Wow!! Thank u for sharing and again congrats on a fine achieve,ent. I hope u will keep the whole sets in ur repertoire. I wonder can u play them all right now or have u had to put them down as u worked new ones? I wish I couldlay through all of them regularly in different sets daily like one day all moniranother day the back 24 another day all major etc. I hope u will continue exploring these as no doubt as u continue to grow and change so to will those evolve with u.

haha thanks, achievement unlocked. but there are three bars still to go it looks like. i wonder what those will be. i can play many of them tho some have left my mind, for exapmle F# major from Book II is so complex and i haven't looked at it since i recorded it here. it took a while to properly memorize A major from book I as well..

going over all of them i see that some iw ould like to play in concert, and some that are better just played at home. book I can be played as a complete set in concert, because it isn't terribly long, but book II is much longer and more complex, though almost every prelude & fugue in there is an excellent concert piece.

im writing a little essay about the WTC and some observations on the concept of fugue, will post it when i am finished. thanks again