The g minor Prelude shows Bach in full-blown Scriabin mode: trills as varied expressive, textural and generative instruments. On the piano, it’s possible to use a trill to radiantly generate an ambient sostenuto of home sonority, or a way of gauging kinetic energy, from the glacial and static to the floating and transcendent. The hurdy-gurdy …
Here’s my latest recording from my survey of The Well-Tempered Clavier. In response to listeners’ requests and suggestions about the recorded sound, I’ve shifted the AMT M40 down further away from the action, into the farther end of the frame. The M40 is a stereo, single-capsule condenser mic that mounts on the inside of the …
One of my earliest teachers described an Allemande as a dance between teacher and pupil. I’ve never found any historical basis for this description, but this all but strictly two-voiced Prelude does have that sense of voices emulative if not imitative of each other. I love the counter-subject of the Fugue, with it’s keening descending …
Read moreJ.S. Bach ~ Prelude & Fugue XIV in f# minor, Book I
I love the Italianate buffo bounce of this Prelude and the way that Pulcinella comedia del’Arte high-spirited conviviality carries over into the Fugue. My 96-episode archive, Everything We Need To Know About Playing The Piano We Learn From The Well-Tempered Clavier, is now available at a special introductory rate of $20 for the first …
Read moreJ.S. Bach ~ Prelude & Fugue XIII in F# Major, Book I
Such a rich panoply of perspective, of foreground/background voices and characters in this f minor Prelude. My favorite moment is The Birth of Robert Schumann @1.07. And I’ve adopted an open-source of decision as to which hand, or between what combinations of left and right hand result in the most successful statement of the opening …
I’ve recorded Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier through Prelude & Fugue XIV. Meantime, I’ve just now started getting into a really good production schedule, going from one episode of my educational archive, Everything We Need To Know About Playing The Piano We Learn From The Well-Tempered Clavier, per week to one nightly. I’m becoming …
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