Playing Bach on the Keyboard: A Practical Guide (Amadeus) [Hardcover] Review

This book summarizes many artistic elements of performing Bach, but in a very objective, matter-of-fact way. I found much useful content, but the delivery is very academic, and, in many cases, boring. A sense of humor or story-telling would ease reading, and this book has very little of either.

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Product Description:
In this concise and accessible volume, a noted keyboard artist and Bach specialist takes a fresh look at the performance of J. S. Bach's keyboard music. Addressing the nonspecialist player, Richard Troeger presents a wide range of historical information and discusses its musical applications. The author shares accounts of the musical styles Bach employed and the instruments he knew. In direct and pragmatic terms, he clarifies the importance of notational and style details as guides to the composer's intentions, particularly emphasizing changes in notational norms between Bach's time and the present. Troeger offers core information on dynamics, articulation, tempo, rhythm, ornamentation and accompaniment. He considers controversial issues as well, establishing the importance of the clavichord in Bach's milieu and examining the link between baroque music and rhetoric - a dramatic relationship that can bring great vitality to performance.

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The Well-Tempered Clavier: 48 Preludes and Fugues, Vol. 2 [Paperback] Review

I appreciate what the Kalmus press has done to give helpful footnotes for the ornamentation and the score layout is very clean and spaced well. A good "easy" read, that is relatively easy...if you know the pieces in this book you'll know what I'm talking about!

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Product Description:
A newly engraved edition of the 48 preludes and fugues, Volume II for piano was edited by the noted Bach expert Dr. Hans Bischoff. It includes a table of embellishments and a preface from Dr. Bischoff. KALMUS EDITIONS are primarily reprints of Urtext Editions, reasonably priced and readily available. They are a 'must' for students, teachers, and performers.

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The Well-Tempered Clavier, Vol. 2 (Alfred Masterwork Edition) [Plastic Comb] Review

Bought this as a Xmas present for a friend - really nice book for the money and quickly delivered.Will buy from Amazon again!

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Product Description:
Edited by baroque scholar Judith Schneider, with expert fingering suggestions by Stuttgart Professor Maria Sofianska, the long-awaited Volume 2 of Bach's essential masterpiece contains 30 pages of extensive research and insight into baroque music.
Painstakingly compared with the most important autograph and manuscript sources, this comprehensive edition includes thorough analysis of written and improvised ornamentation, a discussion of period keyboard instruments, insight into pedaling, touch, tempo and rhythm issues, as well as a discussion of preludes and fugues.
Volume 1 has been updated to match its counterpart with new footnotes and a new "look." Both editions are beautifully engraved and adorned with photographs and paintings.

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371 Harmonized Chorales and 69 Chorale Melodies with Figured Bass [Paperback] Review

This is a nice edition to have. Playing two Bach chorales every morning is kind of like doing some jumping jacks and eating a spoonful of codliver oil...which is to say, good for you. After playing the first 120 you can expect some chorale fatigue to set in, but all the while you'll be absorbing good voice-leading and voice-doubling technique as though by osmosis. What's more, Bach will still surprise you- there are chords so jarring and dissonant that their sudden, logical resolution is like watching a rabbit being pulled out of a hat.
On the downside, the notes are small (this edition really packs 'em in) and it can be easy to get lost on the page. No texts are provided, either, aside from the opening words, so you have to accept on faith that some of the more contorted harmonizations are justified by the text. It's still nice to have, though, and looks nice and musicological sitting on the piano.

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Product Description:
The great Baroque master composer Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) wrote music for every combination of instruments and voices. His simplest and purest work are four-part chorale compositions and settings, so perfectly constructed that they evoke meditative spirituality. "Figured bass" was a Baroque system of notating harmony. In addition 371 chorales, this collection includes 69 melodies with figured bass. This classic Schirmer edition, edited by Albert Riemenschneider, has sold over 1,000,000 copies since its release in the early 20th century. Primarily for keyboard, the chorales can also be played by other instruments.

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The Well-Tempered Clavier: Books I and II, Complete [Paperback] Review

Another incredible bargain from Dover. Although I think their edition of the Beethoven complete string quartets (in a single volume!) is probably the best buy in all of music, this edition of The Well Tempered Clavier is a strong competitor. (If only it had included The Art of Fugue!) This is the edition I recommend for my students because of the clarity, absence of artificial or misleading editorial markings, ease of page turns, and cost. It is not perfect; what edition EVER is--in this case, one of my quibbles is that of all the minor key fugues, only ONE (g# minor) ends without a piccardy (raised) third--it simply must be an oversight, and interestingly the accidental already present in the key signature is repeated unnecessarily. Surely B natural should have been B sharp in the final measure. Regardless of the slight problems, this is the single best tool to learn Baroque counterpoint in general and fugue specifically. No textbook I know of is capable of demonstrating the fluidity of form, nor describing the sophistication of melodic and contrapuntal writing that Bach employs. Every book I know of oversimplifies or even avoids the issues that Bach so admirably handles. The answers are here, in the music, not in a text. Absolutely invaluable for the serious music student.

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Product Description:
All 48 preludes and fugues in all major and minor keys. Authoritative Bach-Gesellschaft edition. Explanation of ornaments in English, tempo indications, music corrections.

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Complete Bach Transcriptions for Solo Piano [Paperback] Review

Great music - and a good value.A must for any Bach lovers out there.

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Done with great taste, in a perfectly simple and straightforward manner, Liszt's piano transcriptions of Bach's organ music became the classic models for all future works in this genre.Includes 6Organ Preludes and Fugues (BWV 543-548) and the world-famous Fantasia and Fugue in G minor (BWV 542). New Dover compilation.


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Chopin: Mazurkas For The Piano (Schirmer's Library of Musical Classics Vol. 28.) [Paperback] Review

First of all this is a Shirmer,s book. Any day my piano teacher brought a package from Shirmer's was a red letter day. Shirmer's rocks.
Why Mazurkas??I owned this book since the fifties or so but it must have evaporated or disappeared. But on a foggy day there is nothing like a rollicking Mazurka to get the blood going, so I rebought it. And here is my mother's story.
In the thirties when she first arrived Wanda Landowska gave master classes, and my mother attended. Wanda was playing Mazurkas, and she would sing along (in Polish) the words of the original folk tune. At the end of the lesson all the students would file by to shake the great hand and she would ask them their musical ambitions.When it came my mother's turn Wanda looked down her considerable nose and asked "And vat are you?"

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Product Description:
Mazurkas

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First Lessons in Bach, Complete: For the Piano (Schirmer's Library of Musical Classics) [Paperback] Review

Let me start with an embarrassing admission.I've been playing piano for nearly thirty years.I'm intermediate.I can tackle some intermediate/advanced material, like Michael Nyman's pieces from The Piano.But when I took lessons years ago (only four years), I never took scales or classical music seriously.Thus, I can play pop rock, soundtrack music, and certain expressive classical pieces, but solid, finger-strengthening, mind-puzzling classical pieces I avoided.

Now, at thirty-eight, I'm starting over, and I'm embarrassed to say that I really need to practice these pieces!They make my mind work.I need to concentrate on fingering.I'm proud to be humbled because I'd love to work my way up to playing Bach inventions, variations, preludes and stuff, but I never had the background or training.These simple pieces, designed for young pupils, are great for old or young.They are "songs" in their own right, so you won't be bored.And they subtly introduce all matters of technique (stuff that I never got or never took seriously).I cannot recommend more highly this "First Lessons" book as a place to begin.Once you make it through this book (both Book 1 and Book 2), you'll be ready to tackle more challenging pieces found elsewhere.

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Product Description:
Books I and II of this traditional edition in Schirmer's Library of Musical Classics have been combined in an affordable new volume. An excellent resource for Late Elementary to Early Intermediate pianists.

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