I enjoyed making an articulative panoply of this overture-like Prelude. The Fugue is suffused with as much serenity as the Prelude is with celebration. My 96-episode series, Everything We Need To Know About Playing The Piano We Learn From The Well-Tempered Clavier is now available by subscription at Become A Member
In my years of playing the piano for Elliott, back in Ohio, and Iman, here in Hollywood, I have come to know as established fact that cats love the key of D Major. Elliott was partial to my version of Pink Floyd’s Us & Them, Radiohead’s Give Up The Ghost; Iman has a favorite Rachmaninoff …
The summer of ’17 was my WTC Book One immersion. November ’18 through May ’19 were my months wholly dedicated to Book Two. The first of my home-recorded, one-take videos of the complete WTC began late this passed June, with a concurrent beginning to my 96-episode series, Everything We Need To Know About Playing The …
One of the most eloquent and elastic of the organum Preludes evolving, erupting into an ecstatic Fughetta. The Fugue subject is one of the most bare, schematic of subjects and yet engenders an untold wealth of contrapuntal invention. “thoughtful and inspiring.” ~ Ludovic Morlot My 96-episode archive, Everything We Need To Know About Playing …
Book Two affords us, through their Preludes’ repeated A and B sections, several opportunities for ornament and elaboration. I oftentimes think it’s enough to alter the dynamic contour and balance between voices, foreground and background, exposition followed by meditation. Bach does occasionally in these cases notate ornaments, and I sometimes take those directions as suggestive …
I began work on Book Two of The Well-Tempered Clavier two summers ago at the tail end of my Book One summer project. I focused solely on Book Two since last November, working through to the end in late Spring. Every reacquaintance, whether over the months or in my recent recapitulations of each Prelude & …