Hi everyone, I am a newbie, but started reading some of these great posts and had to post something.



So right now almost done with BWV 856 moving on to 875 shortly. 875 i messed around with it and my main question is the hands during the middle section of the 1st page, my hands seem to roll close to each other and it is hard to position them. I'm talking about the left hand A and E being played under my right hand. It's hard to get comfortable, must be doing something wrong with technique.

I do like mozart/chopin a lot to

Welcome to the Bach fanatics club With few exceptions, all of us here rever Bach and the WTC in particular.
If you can play Bach all day then you have a friend for life. There is nothing better. I could rant on for hours about Bach but won't

Don't think for a moment that some of these "songs" are "really easy". Sometimes it's the technically least demanding that turn out to be the hardest to bring off convincingly. All of them are hard in one way or another, and all of us have to work very hard in mastering any of these pieces. The best advice is maybe, do take your time for them and don't be satisfied too soon that you have them sorted out (I speak from bitter experience...). This music, one is never done with.

Incidentally, BWV 875 is one I am working on currently. While the fugue is not particularly demanding, I find the prelude a real tricky bastard (the preludes often give me more grief than the fugues). I'll check that spot you mentioned tonight and report back. Indeed, large hands are not always a blessing.

Oh great, thank you for sharing this with me. Personally, 856 is my favorite, and it can always be improved. I will take your advice. Sometimes I rush and just want to move on and need to slow down and make sure its improved before moving on. Yeah, I have watched youtube videos of people playing 875, but I can't see how they have their hands set up, and I don't have my teacher anymore to ask questions about the hand congestion. She used to always help me fix a problem like this instantly. I mean I can play through it, but I know there is an easier way of doing things. Again any other experiences with WTC please share/. I by no means think WTC is easy at all, I am not on that level, lol. I have to work really hard for each one of them.

I believe this is exactly what even the greatest of pianists will say. This music will always be better than one can play it. And that must be why it's a joy for life !

The middle section of the first page of the 875 prelude... that's a bit vague and depends on your edition. But I guess you must mean bars 18-25 because this is where hands overlap. I find this to be the 'easiest' part of the prelude. If you play the RH above the LH, and keep the RH quite high and the LH quite low, there should be little problem here even for a bigger hand. I've attached a video snippet I just made (not recording-quality playing, just demo style), hope that helps some.

Thank you so much, thats the section/bars I'm talking about. I think I just need to lift my chair higher as well. I will work on it. I love this section lol sounds cool.

Yeah you do that. We can't all be Glenn Gould

Hey, I just went home and tried and it works better, basically I was using the wrong left hand fingering + RH did not have enough arc. I have very cheap sheet music I printed from online. I only have book 1 WTC, need to go out and buy the second. Thats a nice piano you have, maybe you can post your final version of the prelude on here when you complete it?

maybe you can try this one too!! my favorite version http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVb_ydzAVSY
Ashkenazy plays Bach WTC Book 1

I love how continuous it is. I nobody talks about this prelude as much as the others. It's short but sweet. Its so fun to play long trills so much energy

Good ! Sometimes a hint is all it takes.


It's not mine, I have it on loan while my own (a Gaveau) is being revised. Yes I will post that P+F eventually, but it may be a while. I'm a bit in limbo right now.


I'm not sure how much I like or dislike this. I feel like he's trying to make a point ("hey, I can do this too, and with more frills than anybody else") rather than loving the music. I generally admire Ashkenazy but whether he has empathy with Bach, I don't know...