Suggestions of J.S. Bach's pieces

[ilovepianoxd]

Hello, I like Bach's pieces a lot. I am a pianist.  I have taken the Trinity ATCL exam. Can anyone suggest some of Bach's keyboard pieces? Thanks a lot!

[stevensk]

WTC   

[quantum]

Bach's music takes well to transcription, and there are a good many of them available for piano. 

[mjames]

Bach's music takes well to transcription, and there are a good many of them available for piano. 

This! Siloti's and Feinberg's transcripts are awesome. Also, don't forget about the 1st and 6th keyboard partitas. Enjoy the Bach~

[stevensk]

Bach's music takes well to transcription, and there are a good many of them available for piano.  

Yes! -If we are talking about transcriptions, i suggests some lovely Brahms transcriptions:
(Played by Sukyeon Kim) 

 

[jinfiesto]

Bach's transcription of the Marcello Oboe concerto is really good! Also, maybe it's me, but I rarely hear Bach's transcriptions being played.

[visitor]

[visitor]

[georgey]

This! Siloti's and Feinberg's transcripts are awesome. Also, don't forget about the 1st and 6th keyboard partitas. Enjoy the Bach~

Great suggestions.  I will also suggest the 1st and 6th English suites.  The Gigue of the 6th English suite sounds as devilish as anything written by any composer.  These 2 suites are among my favorites.

[worov]

If you're ready to tackle a major project, check out the Goldberg Variations :

[jinfiesto]

If you're ready to tackle a major project, check out the Goldberg Variations :

Enjoy punishing yourself for the next 5+ years of your life...

[worov]

Enjoy punishing yourself for the next 5+ years of your life...

Well, you may not believe it, but it is very rewarding to play.

[j_tour]

Well, you may not believe it, but it is very rewarding to play.

True, "punishing oneself" isn't maybe the way I think of it, but I've always had a copy for the last twenty-five years -- while I never put in the time or effort to try to do it aria-to-aria I think it's fair to say anyone would find it demanding to play and interpret the whole set from memory. 

The variations are all pretty tuneful, I would say, so maybe not that hard to memorize any one individually -- there are just a lot of them. 

Some of them are also pretty hard to play

I guess that applies to the WTC (either volume) as well, but I've never heard anyone perform them as one uninterrupted set, except on recordings.

I've already heard above what I like best:
Partita in e minor (especially the Toccata and the Gigue, and the Courante is amusing also)

Engl Suite in A major

I still am finding new things in the Sinfonias -- yes, I know they're "little pieces," but I find ones like the e minor, the G major kind of clever and hard to get tired of, and they're all very good music, as well.  Maybe not "major works," but important little divertimenti in their own way.

Also, the Overture in the French Style.  Andras Schiff has a nice concert performance on YouTube that I've enjoyed watching for inspiration from time to time.

If I had quite a while to spend, and could push everything to one side for a good while, I'd concentrate on the *Art of the Fugue*, because of his major works, regardless of instrumentation, I'm less familiar with it than the Goldbergs.

The WTC I&II I'm content with just doing a handful.  Also, I find that the general opinion of their difficulty doesn't really relate to how much I like them -- for example, the Bb major from Bk. I is considered one of the easier ones, but I just love the fugue.  The passages in major thirds I think sound great on a modern piano.