Piano Forum

Hey all,
I’m playing Bach’s prelude and Diego’s in C sharp minor from book 1 of the WTC, and I was wondering whether to play the prelude with all of the ornaments. Did Bach write those himself or are the ornaments just decorations added by editors? Do you guys think the constant ornaments should be played or not? I personally don’t like the ornaments, and I’m trying to think of an argument of why not to play them, because my teacher believes they should be played and I don’t.

Thanks,
Alex

Hi, Alex,

The short answer to your question is - yes, you have to play them all as they are in the Henle edition. I would give you 2 reasons: (1) authenticity; (2) it is simply good practice to learn to play them perfectly in tempo (as if they were written out) and required dynamics.

The other approach is to look critically at all the ornaments and try to split them into 2 categories: Category 1 - ornaments that compensate for short sustain abilities of early 18th century keyboard instruments (trills in bar 2 and 8 can be candidates), Category 2 - ornaments with clear melodic value (pretty much all mordants, cadences and appoggiaturas). There is also idem in soprano voice in bar 29 that may be open to interpretation.

Obviously, it is a very subjective analysis (who knows what what was going on in Bach's head when he was composing this prelude)