Piano Forum

Piano Street Magazine:
A Daily Dose of Bach? – Access his Complete Scores on Piano Street

Johann Sebastian Bach’s keyboard music is some of the most essential repertoire for pianists, although he lived before the era of the modern piano. And you don’t need to look any further than Piano Street: our library of sheet music by Bach – 250 pieces waiting to be explored – is now complete. Read more

Topic: Strange fingerings (BWV 884)  (Read 2358 times)

Offline alatius

  • PS Silver Member
  • Newbie
  • ***
  • Posts: 2
Strange fingerings (BWV 884)
on: November 12, 2021, 08:24:23 PM
I just started look at Bach's BWV 884, and found this score on IMSLP:
https://s9.imslp.org/files/imglnks/usimg/e/e5/IMSLP564779-PMLP738830-bwv_884.pdf

It's not pretty to look at, but it has fingering advice, which I thought might be helpful. But, is it just me, or do these fingerings look really strange? For convenience, I took an image of the firsta bars:



In the first bar, the editor proposes to rest with the left hand pinkie (5) on the G (of course), while playing B-A-B using 4-3-4! At first I thought this was just an editing error, but then in bar 4, there is a similar strange fingering in the right hand: thumb on F#(!) followed by index finger (2) on E. I am not very advanced, granted, but I can't twist my hands in this way, nor do I see the need to even try.

So, what's up with this? Should I just throw this score away, or is there something I am missing here?


Sign up for a Piano Street membership to download this piano score.
Sign up for FREE! >>

Offline lelle

  • PS Gold Member
  • Sr. Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 2638
Re: Strange fingerings (BWV 884)
Reply #1 on: November 12, 2021, 10:59:31 PM
Yeah that score looks pretty awful, I'd just pick another edition. My guess is the 4 3 4 is supposed to be 3 4 3, but when creating the score they just copy-pasted the error without checking.

Offline alatius

  • PS Silver Member
  • Newbie
  • ***
  • Posts: 2
Re: Strange fingerings (BWV 884)
Reply #2 on: November 13, 2021, 01:01:33 PM
Thanks, as I suspected then!  :)
 

Logo light pianostreet.com - the website for classical pianists, piano teachers, students and piano music enthusiasts.

Subscribe for unlimited access

Sign up

Follow us

Piano Street Digicert
Customer Reviews