Piano Forum

From my perspective I find Bachs WTC overall more helpful in terms of how it develops you compared to the inventions.

Thank you for saying that.

It's an odd bit of keyboard lore that ZOMG you can't possibly tackle any of the WTC without doing such-and-such of Bach first!  Absolutely no reason someone can't play any number of these p+fs with some basic technique, study, and effort.

I'm not saying that many of the fugues and even preludes aren't demanding, long, and full of challenges, and to my tastes, I'd just as soon never play nor hear some of the preludes as long as I live again.  But the best of the fugues are still in the future for me.  Even the supposedly simpler ones.  A lot of pleasures to be had.  And there are several very good print editions which make sight-reading/hacking one's way through them a reasonable use of one's time, to some extent.

And, to be a bit cynical or practical, probably you'd get more prestige points from getting together at least a few preludes+fugues from either book of the WTC, even though it is a student work.

My view is that there are ways to make music out of the two-part inventions (whether the time might be better spent in some cases on similar inventions, like from Scarlatti is really down to taste — no, I don't go back to very many, but I'm glad I did most of them a long time ago, even if I never play the A minor again or some of the others), but I wouldn't do without the Sinfonie.  True, it can get a bit boring when you do a bunch of them every single day, but I think of the Sinfonie as Bach's version of the Chopin préludes (no, I only can play the easier Chopin ones that I can sight-read without much effort — as everyone knows, some of the Chopin préludes are downright beastly to play, however András Schiff makes it look easy, although still good music) — there's something there, and I get a lot of mileage out of using those as part of a daily routine.  The best of the Sinfonie are little jewels, easily the equal or better of many of the WTC preludes.

For me, at least, there's always a few options I can explore in them, depending on my mood.

EDITED TO ADD You know what I would do for the Haydn/early classical portion?  The Hob. XVI:48 in C major sonata.  Loads of super-famous pianists have recorded this, and it's later Haydn, and, honestly, even though I'm not that great at some of my chops, it can be read off the page pretty easily.  It's also an interesting piece, musically, with a lot of room to "breathe" in your interpretation. Nobody could reasonably complain about it being "easy," even though I didn't find it demanding.

For Beethoven, if you need to add one, I'm still enjoying playing the Op. 27 no. 1.  I'ts long, but not so hard to memorize.  But you've already got the Op. 2 F major, so just do that.

I'm a bit confused about the étude requirement, but I'd go with the Moszkowski Op. 72.  The G minor isn't so bad, and they surely won't ask you to do the whole set.  Frankly the Chopin sets make my p*ssy dry, mostly because I only did the Op. 10 no. 12 to practice octaves.  The Brahms Chaconne (D minor) for LH is a bit much, since it's so long, not that you couldn't play it.  AFAIC, you're own your own for those.  I do like the Czerney Op. 799, but I don't play them front-to-back, just occasionally to do some scales work if I'm bored.

Bach:  WTC II C minor, P+F, or WTC I Bb major, P+F (ETA OR, the C major from WTC I:  the fugue is kind of a b**ch, but if you get the fingering right, it's manageable, and by no means one of the easier from WTCI.  Also from WTCI:  the E major is possibly.  The prelude is just a stupid little bagatelle, but the fugue takes some doing.  OR if you run out of time, do the WTCI E minor prelude and fugue.  The fugue is great, even though it's only two voices.  The prelude kind of sucks, maybe substitute the E minor sinfonia, but I don't know how liberal your judges would be.  I like the fugue around All Saint's Day, being a good superstitious Catholic but it's somewhat difficult for me to remember, despite it being kind of simple.)

Among the Sinfonie, if you want to do that for audition....well, probably the D major or the A major are the trickiest.  Probably more worthwhile to get some WTC under your belt and do that.
Haydn:  Hob. XVI: 48, C major
Mozart, "Rondo," from the Jeunehomme/Jénamy Concerto, not much orchestral supplement needed (at least to me it works pretty well as a solo piano movement, unlike the other two movements)
Moszkowski, Op. 72 G minor (Alfred has a cheap, slim paperback edition with some amusing notes)
Debussy, "Gradus ad parnassum," encore.

Game, set, match.  You're in like Flynn.

Also, in which order would you recomend learning the keys?

Well, there's no two ways about it, you need to know them all.

I'd just go up chromatically, or by whole steps.  Mix and match major and the minor keys.  Start at B major if you want.  You can do relative minors or parallel minors, or whatever seems good, but there's no getting around that you got to know the keyss.

You can put on an Aretha Franklin or James Brown record or people like that who often ascend in whole steps via keys.  Or like that old pop tune "Sunny."  Hell, you can probably just put on some of those records and just play along by ear:  good practice, I'd think.  It's not virtuoso romantic repertoire, but it's not nothing, either.