Bach 2 part invention no 1 BWV 772

[betricia]

I have no idea how to find the thread I am looking for.  I remember reading a list supplied by Bernhard I think that was what was suitable for beginners, intermediate and so on.  Was this Bach invention on beginners list?  Can anyone tell me how to find the thread?  Is it just a case of looking through and reading.  If so apologies and I will continue to do that.  I am learning this piece but it is taking me ages.  I started a week ago and have been trying a little every day and still can only manage to play the first 4 bars.  My teacher has not set me this but I wanted to try it.
Thanks
Patricia
 

[xvimbi]

Use the search function; enter "bach inventions" in the "search for" field, and "bernhard" in the "by user" field, and voila!

[betricia]

Thanks xvimbi.  that's great.  I never knew how to do that. 
I appreciate your help.
Patricia
 

[bernhard]

This invention is thought to be around grade 5. However don’t let this deter you – I have taught it to complete beginners  - including a five-year-old.

Have a look here:

https://www.pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2714.0.html

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[betricia]

Dear Bernhard
A five year old??  Well I will try not to let that dishearten me too much.  Wow.  Mind you the five year old has you teaching them.  Wish I did.  I have a question about the piece if you don't mind me asking.  I have listened to the piece and in bars 1 and 2 there are twiddly bits.  I do not know the name for these and apologise.  However on the score I am using the notes to be played quickly are bcb in bar 1 and  in bar 2 are fgf.   Now when I play them the sound seems different to the recording.  Obviously I do not expect to sound the same but the notes seem to be different particularly in bar 2.  Is this possible or am I just hearing the professional playing it properly and I am too early in my playing to discern the notes by ear correctly.
Thanks if you have time to answer.
Patricia

[betricia]

Sorry, forgot to say thank you for the thread you posted.  I have printed it out and it will be very helpful.
Patricia
 

[bernhard]

I have listened to the piece and in bars 1 and 2 there are twiddly bits.  I do not know the name for these and apologise. 

You are forgiven.

The twiddly bits are ornaments. It is not at all clear if Bach has provided them himself, not only on bars 1 and 2, but also on bars 5, 6, 8, 9, 14, 13 (LH), 15, and 20.

However on the score I am using the notes to be played quickly are bcb in bar 1 and  in bar 2 are fgf.   Now when I play them the sound seems different to the recording.  Obviously I do not expect to sound the same but the notes seem to be different particularly in bar 2.

Yes, that is how I learned them last century . You probably have an old edition or one that does not pay much attention to these matters . Unfortunately this realisation is now considered incorrect. Baroque ornaments in 99% of the case should start on the upper auxiliary, not on the main note. So “bcb” and “fgf” are out, and “cbcb and “gfgf” are in. However it is not clear how exactly the ornament should be played.

Consider and compare these two possibilities for bars 1 - 2:



The first one is by Rosalyn Tureck, and it is the way I play and teach it. The second one is by Richard Jones. What is the difference? At speed it is unlikely anyone will be able to detect if you are playing the cbcb as 32 notes or as 16 triplet notes (marginally slower). And in any case, most performers will not play ornaments metronomically but will stretch time around it if necessary. So the speed is not the main consideration here. The important interpretative decision here is how the ornament will end.

If you follow Rosalyn’s directions, the last note of the ornament is played before the left hand D, which means that the D on the left hand is played on the decay of the right hand B. If you follow Richard’s direction, the B (RH) and the D(LH) will be played together.

In terms of execution, Rosalyn’s way is far more difficult than Richard’s. But (personally speaking) in sound terms, Rosalyn’s is far more satisfying since the voices will be unblurred. Also I must confess that I like the idea that “the easiest is not the noblest”.

You must also keep in mind that these are “embellishments” and most performers during the Baroque period would improvise them and provide their own realisations (in fact, Bach was much resented for daring to intrude in the performer’s turf by actually writing out the ornaments).

For instance, H. N. Gerber (1702 – 1775), who was a student of Bach, suggests a much more elaborate realisation on bars 5 – 6, than either Tureck or Jones:



So it is well possible that Bach and his students when playing this piece would go “crazy” and ornament and improvise wildly on it.

So, when comparing your playing to a CD, remember that the performer may be playing his own realisation, rather than any particular realisation in any particular edition. Some performers (e.g., Eugeni Koroliov and Maria Tipo amongst others) will add ornaments, besides the ones Bach (supposedly) wrote down.

Here are the remaining ornaments as realised by Tureck and Jones (and you should investigate other realisations besides these two as well).





(Check out Tureck’s ornamentation of the last chord )

You may also be interested in knowing that there is a very different version of this invention, where Bach added triplets everywhere (there is a recording of it by Rosalyn Tureck for Sony: “Bach’s Keyboard Album”, where she plays both versions; and Andras Schiff in his recording of the inventions for Phillips plays the triplet version). There is a lot of discussion amongst scholars about which is the correct version, and why Bach composed both. I tend to side with the opinion that says that the triplet version was Bach’s way of demonstrating how to make melodic elaborations on a set piece (the alternative view is that Bach was dissatisfied with the triplet version and improved on it).

You may also wish to have a look on this thread where the question of ornaments in this invention has been discussed:

https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php?topic=87.0

Confused now?

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[betricia]

Dear Bernhard
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.  You are so very kind and helpful and I have printed your last post out.   The information is so interesting and I am not sure if I would have found any of this out without you.  It is such an asset to have you respond to someone like me and I wish I could take you out for a meal or something.   Reading your posts has helped me more than my teacher and you have so much knowledge which you share.  How you have the time and patience I do not know but I am so very grateful.  If you are ever in Surrey then post a message and I will treat you to a slap up meal.
You are a treasure.
Thank you
Patricia
 

[torchygirl]

Just a note for those who aren't seeing the differences between some of the variations....the musical bits can be scrolled left and right. If I looked correctly, the example with Gerber doesn't differ until the very end...out of view at first for me.

I sat and scratched my head a bit before realizing it.  (But of course, I knew Bernhard wouldn't make a mistake!  hee hee!)

Karen

[mikeyg]

That's how I play the last chord: arpegiated with a mordent... 

[bernhard]

Dear Bernhard
Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.  

You are welcome, you are welcome, you are welcome, you are welcome.

It is such an asset to have you respond to someone like me and I wish I could take you out for a meal or something.   If you are ever in Surrey then post a message and I will treat you to a slap up meal.

Surrey hmmm... That is not too far (at least it is in the same country)!

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[thierry13]

You are welcome, you are welcome, you are welcome.

You forgot one (just kidding) 

[bernhard]

You forgot one (just kidding) 

Fixed it!

[chopinisque]

I know this a little old... but... what is the penalty of using the old way of ornamentation?  (pun intended)  I noticed that in the first bar itself, the old ornamentation with fingering 213 4 5 123 would move you into a comfortable position to go from D to G.  Isn't that (comfort) more important than stylistic conventions to examiners and adjudicators?

[bernhard]

I know this a little old... but... what is the penalty of using the old way of ornamentation?  (pun intended)  I noticed that in the first bar itself, the old ornamentation with fingering 213 4 5 123 would move you into a comfortable position to go from D to G.  Isn't that (comfort) more important than stylistic conventions to examiners and adjudicators?

Your punishment is that Bach and Tureck’s ghosts will come to pull your leg every night on your sleep.

Years ago I attended (as a member of the public) a master class on Bach ornamentation by Rosalyn Tureck. The student was playing one of the Goldberg variations. Tureck at a certain point asked the student why she had realised a particular ornament in a particular way. Her answer was that it was technically the most comfortable realisation, the easiest to play. Tureck, who was a diminutive woman but one of the most frightening personalities I ever encountered – and not one to mince words – replied (and I quote verbatim, since I wrote it down as she said it):

“Well my dear, what you are saying is that your technique is not up to the task. So you are deliberately choosing an interpretation that fits your technique, that is easy for you. However, difficulty is not a premise on which to build an interpretation.. You decide on the interpretation and then you work on the technique to bring it out.”

(The realisation of Baroque ornaments is considered within the realm of “interpretation”).


(have a look here for more Rosalyn’s wisdom:
https://pianoforum.net/smf/index.php/topic,2585.msg23066.html#msg23066)

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[chopinisque]

That clears it up.  Just a matter of interpretation then. 

Thanks.

[bernhard]

That clears it up.  Just a matter of interpretation then. 

Thanks.

Er… Does it?

Consider the excerpt below.



1.   What is this strange symbol? How do we interpret it? It is a G clef. It tells us that the second line in the staff is the note G.

2.   What about this C? How do we interpret it? It is a time signature and it stands for 4/4: in each bar there are 4 quarter notes (4x1/4), and there is something else that you must know: the first and third beats are strong beats, and the second and fourth beats are weak beats.

3.   What is this weird looking scribble? It is a rest, and its duration is determined by its appearance. In this case it is a semiquaver rest.

4.   What about these two lines joining the notes? Again they indicate the relative duration of each note, in this case the duration of a semiquaver.

5.   Why are the notes all over the staff? Because each line and each space corresponds to a key in the keyboard and to a determined pitch. In this particular case, placing a note on the first space tells us it is an F (middle F)

6.   What about this note of the staff? It is actually middle C. The ledger line is mad invisible until you place a note in it. And the distance between bass and treble staff is artificially created to facilitated reading.

You see, all this is interpretation, not “just” interpretation. What would you say to someone who proceeded to play this excerpt with all the wrong notes, and then justified it by saying, “Well, it is just interpretation”.

Notation of any kind (musical or non-musical) is a simplified, distorted model of the real thing (in the case of musical notation, it is a model for performance). If you are to render the music from the notation you must supply the missing bits and undistort the distorted ones. This of course is far from easy, and it is not a matter of personal taste pure and simple. Just like you would not play the wrong notes because they sounded better to you, or because it would make the piece “easier” (hence Rosalyn Tureck‘s dismissal of the student’s answer above), likewise you should not treat ornamentation in a purely subjective way. This is something that most students do not realise: Interpretation is not subjective. In fact students often confuse interpretation with expressivity. Interpretation is simply the set of rules and procedures that allow one to extract the music from the score – as exemplified in 1 – 6 above.

The problem with Early music is that many times such rules and procedures have been lost. We simply do not know how to “interpret”, that is we have no idea how to actually convert the symbols into musical realities. Many times the score leaves out much that was common knowledge amongst musicians of the time. If the tradition of performance is no more a living one, there is no way one can recover such performance procedures. With much research and study it is possible to make some informed guesses that turn up to be surprisingly near the real thing (when research has indeed uncovered the real thing for us to compare our guesses with the real thing).

A further problem (perhaps the real problem) is when composers of Early music use familiar symbols to us, but which to them had quite a different meaning, and therefore we “interpret” the symbol wrongly. Staccato signs (and wedges on top of the notes) fall into this category – as much of the short hand for ornamentation.

So it is not “just interpretation” if by that you mean a free for all. It is interpretation as deep knowledge of the rules of the game. And by the way, the old ornamentation practice in this case has been shown to be wrong. So you have some leeway but not as much as you may think.

Imagine that you discovered a board and pieces of the chess game, but had no idea how to play the game. We are now at the stage where we figured out that Bishops move on the diagonals, but we are not quite sure yet how many squares they can cover. But we definitely know that moving a Bishop as you would move a rook is simply wrong.

Best wishes,
Bernhard.

[chopinisque]

I would like to say I understand, but I'm too busy grinning.