Who is the best composer for polyphony training?

[piabanoch]

I always think Bach was the best for poliphony training but i'm not sure

[lelle]

I would agree Bach is the best because he has so much to offer in different styles and difficulty levels, but most baroque composers will offer you polyphony to work with if you want a change of scenery.

[dominict]

If you want some variety from Bach (although his repertoire has plenty of variety as is) you could try Shostakovich's Preludes & Fugues - they're mostly of an intermediate difficult so relatively playable but there are some outliers that are more easy and difficult. Not to mention they're really fun pieces! He composed them after being inspired by a pianist's playing OF the Bach Prelude & Fugues, so they have similar levels of contrapuntal writing and polyphony.

[anacrusis]

Bach, Couperin, Rameau, Händel...

[hozepshad]

Are you asking about playing polyphonic music or composing polyphonic music, or both?

J.S Bach is definitely good to study for both, especially for playing polyphonic music with his 2 part and 3 part inventions, which allows one to try pieces in different number of voices from 2 to 3 (then 4 with the WTC).

Frescobaldi's Fiori Musicali (end of Renaissance beginning of Baroque) is a great resource as well, highly influential on most baroque keyboard composers, Bach studied this work for sure. If you're up to the challenge you could try transcribing some a capella motets or madrigals from the renaissance, I recommend Thomas Tallis since a lot of times he combines both polyphonic and homophonic textures within the same multi-voice works.

Sergei Taneyev (Late Romantic) is a great resource as well, maybe not so much for playing on piano (he has a very difficult prelude and fugue for piano, opus 29), but he wrote a book about invertible counterpoint that's kind of hard to read, but he has a chapter summarizing the rules of strict counterpoint which I recommend checking out.

All the great composers will have polyphonic or contrapuntal textures
polyphony always has counterpoint, but counterpoint doesn't always mean polyphony: polyphony is when the foreground, or the dominant line, is moving around from voice to voice, which requires counterpoint. But a homophonic piece could have a lot of independent inner textures (counterpoint) that never rise to the foreground (a lot of Chopin and Rachmaninoff)

[kosulin]

IMHO, Bach is the best for gradual polyphony study.
And fugues by Reicha - when you go for polyrhythm.

[simplyeric]

Bach in general.  Bach's Prelude and Fugues are one of the most beneficial/important pieces you can play.  I have recently gotten into Leopold Godowsky's works and found that playing his works have improved my technique and musical understanding as well.  Some of Godowsky's works are like romantic Bach pieces.  Well that was kind of a bad description but his music is very textured and polyphonic. 

[kosulin]

I agree - Bach is the best from beginner to advanced. With Reicha for polyrhythms.

[bachapprentice]

I agree. Bach!

[lelle]

I could also add that a lot of Schumann is polyphonic and requires a great deal of layering within the same hand, if you want something more romantic.

[bachapprentice]

Bach

[lelle]

Bach

Well obviously you'd be biased since you are Bach's apprentice!

[pianopro181]

I always think Bach was the best for poliphony training but i'm not sure

Bach obviously. It’s not even a question