Bach WTC I

[trance_dude]

Hi, I just got Bach WTC book I and would like to learn a prelude and fugue from it.  Any recommendations for the first one?  

Learned the C major prelude a long time ago of course so would kind of be cool to know the fugue too.

I like to listen to the C minor prelude but not sure I want to learn it as it's very... busy what with a note on every possible 16th beat...

Thanks for any ideas!

EDIT:  just found this post   https://www.pianostreet.com/smf/index.php?topic=2857.0

Also am realizing how busy and difficult ALL the pieces are.  Have learned a few of the inventions but these are a different ballpark.  Sorry to sound naive, I am an amateur and hadn't really seen this music before.  There are some amazing pro recordings / performances of them on the internet.

[chopinawesome]

Why not try something easier first? Go to imslp and print out a french suite that you like(BWV 812-817). After that, you can try either the  d minor one bwv 851, c minor bwv 847,or B flat Major bwv 866.

[brogers70]

Among the less difficult fugues are c minor, d minor, and D major. Among the less difficult preludes are C major, E major, B major, e flat minor. Among the less difficult P&F pairs would be d minor and D major, and maybe c minor, though none of those preludes is exactly easy.

As chopinawesome said, you could always back off a little and try something a little less difficult. French Suites are a good idea, the c minor and Eb major are probably the least difficult there. The b minor and c minor and D major sinfonias (three part inventions) are all pretty approachable.

[feddera]

The first one I learned was the one in D minor. The fugue might be one of the easiest of the set, but the prelude is not. The same goes for the one in C minor. The fugue is "easy", but the prelude is really hard if you want a good tempo for the presto part (140bpm +). I don't agree with the difficulty order in the other thread at all. You also don't have to learn them in pairs right away, but if that is what you want to to, I would look at the prelude and fugue in G minor first. Of the 5 pairs I've played so far, that one gave me the least trouble.

[trance_dude]

Thanks for the suggestions - very helpful!

Yeah, I may very well back off.  I mean on one hand, for the last two things I learned I purposely chose pieces that would challenge me (Schubert Op 90 Impromptus #2 and #3), and I'm incredibly glad that I did as I feel like I learned so much in doing so, also bc I love those pieces themselves.

But I'm aware that these Bach fugues are incredibly demanding, technical and intellectual pieces.  Different type of "work" required to learn them well.  I think I could eventually learn the notes but upon listening to some of these I'm not sure I could bring an interpretation to the table that would satisfy me.

We'll see.  Thanks for the tips!!

EDIT: Correction (again)!  Listened to the prelude in d minor and really like it.  Should be manageable, and the fugue has a relatively slow pace.  Question, in learning/memorizing these, is there a preferred approach.  Obviously one doesn't want to just memorize every single note but rather pay attention to what chords are being outlined.  With regards to this, do you think I should sit down and/or get a study guide and actually figure out what every single chord/harmony is.  Wouldn't normally, but heard with Bach it is not a bad idea. 

Also, practice hands separately?  Again wouldn't normally but heard with Bach it is not a bad idea.

thanks!

[j_tour]

Good for you.  I've been taking Bach more seriously for the past year (as a kid I didn't go through the Inventions and Sinfonias methodically, but did a few of each and I think the toccata from the E minor Partita and the Goldberg Variations 1-4 were the only other ones I did).

The first fugues I did from the WTCI, probably about six months ago (not perfect, but I can and do still play them), are the Bb and the C minor.  I think those are considered among the easier ones, but it happens that those are ones I really felt like doing (the Bb major because of the thirds -- neat sound, and the C minor because of the Slonimsky minitudes that use the theme as a point of departure -- ETA I think the minitudes are called something like "Bach x 2 = Debussy" and ... "Bach in Fluid Tonality"....as an aside, I highly recommend learning the "Happy Birthday" minitude and keeping it in your book if you want to mess with people on their birthday).  I like the Bb major prelude, but I can't stand the C minor prelude, but it happens that the C minor prelude from WTCII is pretty nice, if you want to pair that with it.  The WTCII C minor fugue is also very nice, and about the same difficulty.

I like the E minor fugue, which I think is also considered an easier one (it's only two voices, and is pretty short), but it's great if you want to isolate the technical problem of using contrary motion between the hands, and it's pretty short and sounds kind of neat at a fast tempo.  It's a lot easier than the fugues from the E minor partita (the one in the Toccata and the Gigue, which I'm not sure is technically a strict fugue, but it's fugue-like and it's a b**** to play), and if you feel like improvising if you get tired, "The Green Leaves of Summer" is typically played in E minor as well, for some added melodic content.

Well, I'm sure there's a lot of information about them all somewhere -- I don't think it makes sense to call one fugue harder than another for the WTCI.  Some of them are very long (the a minor), but IME they all have to be approached the same way -- one voice at a time.  

I still occasionally read through the C major fugue (again, I don't care for the Prelude -- most people love it, but I wouldn't play it just for fun for myself) -- it's tricky, I guess, but the main problem for me is how to make it sound musical.  It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me, but I should probably just commit it to memory for symmetry.  

Oh, and my "technique" for learning, for what it's worth (I'm obviously not a Bach expert), is to start with the regular score (I have the Peters edition), read through it as notated, then use the open score, and figure out for myself exactly how I want to divide up the parts between LH and RH, and, what I've been doing for the Art of the Fugue #9, create successively "simplified" scores which only have, say, SAB, or STenorBass, or even just two voices, like SB or TB or whatever, and work on that level, by variously leaving out certain voices, until I'm comfortable playing the whole piece at my desired tempo (with an eye to the final fingering I'd use), and start thinking about what voices or fragments of a voice to add in.

It's really a pretty dumb, paint-by-numbers approach, but it has the advantage that it takes almost no effort and is very fast to go from "fumbling reading through the printed score for keyboard" to making actual music at a real tempo.  To get to the final step of playing all voices, well, I guess that is the bigger step, but it would depend on the player, I suppose.