suitable edition of Bach WTC II for beginner ?

[huaidongxi]

greetings practitioners and teachers, maestros, sages.  have been shopping for a w.t.c-II, and prefer not to swallow the expense of the Henle edition.  with luck, might eventually play a few of the preludes, but reading scores while listening is one of my favorite pastimes.  does anyone recommend the Newman 'great performers' edition (Schirmer) ?  already have the Alfred edition of the first book, purchased some years ago with the hope it could help remedy my complete ignorance of ornamentation and other Baroque practices, and that version of the second book is also considerably cheaper than the Henle.  any recommendation welcomed, of course, and thanks again for the kind assistance.

[marijn1999]

greetings practitioners and teachers, maestros, sages.  have been shopping for a w.t.c-II, and prefer not to swallow the expense of the Henle edition.  with luck, might eventually play a few of the preludes, but reading scores while listening is one of my favorite pastimes.  does anyone recommend the Newman 'great performers' edition (Schirmer) ?  already have the Alfred edition of the first book, purchased some years ago with the hope it could help remedy my complete ignorance of ornamentation and other Baroque practices, and that version of the second book is also considerably cheaper than the Henle.  any recommendation welcomed, of course, and thanks again for the kind assistance.

No, I wouldn't buy Schirmer's edition, as well as Czerny's edition published by C.F. Peters. Instead look for Franz Kroll's edition also published by Peters. It is urtext which I would recommend buying anyway, certainly in the case of Bach. I have the Henle editions, but indeed, they are expensive, but definately worth the money.

Hope that helps

BW,
Marijn

[perfect_pitch]

I have the Henle editions, but indeed, they are expensive, but definately worth the money.

+1 to Henle - never set me wrong. They're great.

[wage]

Yes, Henle is expensive, but for Bach and Beethoven they are just by far the best imo.

[chopinlover01]

I second the Henle recommendation.

That said, if you can't afford them, best to get an urtext. Barenreiter is a good one, though I'm not sure of their price.

[quantum]

I would recommend Bärenreiter if you are looking for a quality edition.

If you are looking to save money, just use the Bach Gesellschaft which can be found online.  There are criticisms regarding accuracy in some volumes, but as long as you are aware of this you should be fine.  To put things in perspective, the Bach Gesellschaft was the precursor to the current Bärenreiter (New Bach Edition). 

Schirmer would not be one of the editions I'd use.  However, the Widor / Schweitzer edition of the Bach organ works (published by Schirmer) may be worth a look if you are interested in those pieces. 

[j_tour]

This is a minor "bump," but I just bought the new Henle with András Schiff's fingerings of WTCII.

I was skeptical at first of Schiff's fingerings (his fingers are shorter than mine), but from reading through, there's nothing controversial or anything at all. 

Anyway, you can or should just ignore the fingerings.

More importantly, the Henle seems to have a good way of printing the separation of voices between the hands.  In some places.  I've been using print-outs from various sources previously, but I like having a clean edition for just playing, and Henle fits the bill.

At any rate, it wasn't very expensive from an online retailer, and is fairly compact, but not cramped like the Peters edition I have for WTCI.

FWIW, I also don't see what's so bad about the Alfred edition, although my only experience is recently getting the Invention+Sinfonie, and I was impressed by the legibility of separating the voices between the hands (similar to Busoni's edition of the Sinfonie), although plenty of page-turning involved, especially for one who hasn't bothered to memorize most of the pieces, but still uses these pieces as part of a daily routine.

[lukepettyjohn]

Alfred's version of WTC1 is great.  I don't have their version of WTC2 and I imagine it is a great edition as well.  it has help helpful comments, fingerings, and background information.  You can get it comb-bound on Amazon for $29.95.

[j_tour]

I love the Henle with András Schiff's fingerings.  I'm much more familiar with the old Peters edition of the WTCI, but the typesetting/engraving is pretty cramped.

I don't know if it's for beginners, but it's got the right notes, and it's got some good fingering, and the hand-separations seem sensible to me just from reading through.

That said, the only Alfred edition I have of Bach is the Inventions+Sinfonie, and whoever edited it did a great job of, it seems to me, legibly writing out what hand should do what.  Pretty much the way Busoni wrote it, without all the extra stuff.

Plus, plenty of space to write your own notes.

But for a book that will last a while and keeps you free of eyestrain with that shock-white paper, my vote's for the Henle.

ETA WHOOPS! Wow.  I didn't realize I'd written pretty much the same thing back in November of last year.  Well, apparently, I still like the Henle WTCII. 

The way I'd put it is that the Henle editions of Bach are primarily scores designed for reading, at all stages.  As well as looking at the editorial notes and the sometimes interesting prefatory material.  All of my Debussy purchases work great from Henle (yeah, I know, Durand &cie is the "real" edition, but I like the editorial notes and extra material offered by the Henle), and I'm about ready to upgrade the Bach keyboard concertos to the Henle editions, just for the simple reason that there can be a lot of notes, and much of Bach I'm not going to commit to memory, so it helps to have a legible edition, for me. 

Plus, they're sturdy as hell for being just paper-bound editions (I know they do some hardcover editions, but I've never seen one outside of a library).  I don't go anywhere without stuffing a few scores in my shoulder-bag, so that's a pretty good test of how well an edition/publication holds up.  I'd imagine actual students would give similar or even rougher treatment to their scores.