Piano Forum

For me, I like to accent the first note of each figure which is supplying the melody. It helps define the contour of the music. I also like the piece to be more dramatic with dynamics.

You are playing very stiff. The music sounds almost as if it is in 1/1. It should have a 2/2 feel superimposed with a 4/4. Think of it as quarter notes that are filled in with an embellished chord tones.

My suggestion would be for you to try to play it very exaggerated and try to get into the music. I know it is Bach but music is music. You want it to be driving, specially towards the end of the first part when the tension is building up. You should experiment. Remember, just because there are no dynamics written doesn't mean you can't add your own. Ultimately you have to make the notes come alive and if that means filling in dynamics then that is what you have to do. Composers can't notate every little thing. They expect the player to take their "suggestions" as a template, not as the gospel(regardless of what some people believe).

You have al the ingredients but now focus on making it sing. Part of it is the piano IMO. Those digital pianos generally don't have the dynamical range to give all the nuance needed. You might try to see if you can mess with the settings and try changing the key "hardness". I'm assuming the Pianoteq is a plugin you are using? There are much better ones out there. Have you tried playing this on professional grand to compare the difference?

Performance wise it is as if you are reading an audio book without emotion or little emotion. If this is your intent then it is ok. But if you want to people to be emotionally pulled in you yourself have to put in the emotion. This involves shaping the music in a way that gives it character. You shouldn't be playing every "bar" the same way. Meaning you should be thinking about how to add nuance to make the piece feel like a story. E.g., every accent is not the same. Your goal is to add individual character to every note, every beat, every bar. Very subtle nuances that makes each part fit with the whole.

It's not a series of chord changes on a figure. Go back to the C major prelude. It's the same figuration but just chords and inversions but even harder to make sound emotional since there is even less going on the music. In this case the nuances are even more crucial.

For example, when you have the arpeggio runs(the C7b9 to Fm/C), that is a pivotal point in the music(as are the previous changes in the material). That run should, to feel emotionally meaningful, move to the climax, the C note, with intensity and with acceleration. You want to EMPHASIZE that point. It's a V i that is setting up the coda and has a lot of tension. If you do not emphasize the tension then you do not emphasize the release and the release won't feel great. (it's basically sex or the orgasm at work. There is a reason the word climax is used in both contexts)

Part of it is that you are being robotic yourself.  Remember, music is all about emotion. You have surely heard midi music. It has all the right notes, even dynamics, and everything the score has... but it never feels quite musical. Get your body into it, it will help you feel the pulses and the meaning within the music that Bach put there. Maybe get a story in your head that helps you interpret it emotionally.

Don't be afraid to get real loud or real quite. If you notice, in our society typically those types of people get the most attention. Same with music. No matter how good the notes are, if it's played through a walkie-talkie it won't sound/feel good. The real difference between good and great is the emotion and the emotion is what controls all the nuances and "overlays" them into the story the music is trying to tell.

Practice it with too much "emotion" if necessary and then you can back off. Try different things. Experimentation is the key. E.g., what happens if you get quite when it says to get loud? What happens if you accelerate when it says ritard? Try it, see what happens, you'll learn something in the process.

For example, when I play this I put in a subtle acceleration and crescendo from the start until the 2nd part. This is to built up intensity. It is very subtle, just about 5 bpm and about 1.5db. Sometimes more, sometimes less. This is all on top of the already dynamic changes that correspond to the harmonic tensions and accents.

You may claim that it isn't stylistic of Bach to do things like this. I'd then suggest you listen to some violin concertos and solos to see how Bach sounds with emotion. The solo violin pieces are full of emotion that is added by the violinist but doesn't exist in the score. The score, without the emotion, sounds rather bland. In some cases, things simply do not work well musically without the correct "emotion". I think it is a misconception that Bach's music is suppose to be played "as written". Bach was one of the greatest musicians ever to exist. Do you think he wrote emotionless music that effectively are just exercises or that he expected musicians to know how to put emotion in to the music correctly and didn't find a need to notate it?

You have the notes down, the question now is what are you going to do with those notes? My suggestion is that if you try to figure out the emotional part that a lot of problems you have will disappear. The stiffness, the somewhat monotone dynamics, the lack of nuance, etc.