I´m glad to have found some time for my next step on WTCII-completion: Prelude and Fugue in f-sharp-major, BWV 882.

For me both, prelude and fugue, express a deep inner joy I would call beatitude, which is expressed in a typical manner for Bach here.

Comments are appreciated!

Here are the video-links:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvK7V-MJ ... ideo_title (Prelude)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ot4QKmKa ... ideo_title (Fugue)

The mp3-file below contains the audio-track of the videos above.

Bach - Prelude & Fugue in F-sharp Major, BWV 882

Hello, musicusblau,

Thanks for playing Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in f-sharp-major BWV 882 , I have just listened to them.
You express a content joy and happiness and I very much enjoyed listening to them.

Best wishes for 2012 from Kristina.

Thank you, Kristina! I´m happy to have expressed content happiness , because that´s what I wanted to express, respective more exactly I wanted to express a certain beatitude. But so in every case the direction was right.

I´m glad you could enjoy my performance and I also wish you all the best for the New Year 2012!

Andreas

Sounded good ! As usual, a bit more polished than my more intuitive versions.
I heard some things I need to check on with score tonight, could just as well be my read mistakes as yours.

Techneut wrote:


Thanks, Chris, nevertheless I feel my Bach-playing to be quite intuitive (in the sense of emotional etc.) ...



I´m awaiting your nitpickings with big curiosity, my friend.

I can't find much to pick on, alas. No wrong notes as such (I just now found 2 or 3 missed accidentals in my performance of this pair ).
Couple of real infinitesimal nits:

Prelude bar 66 : The last LH note should be a 16th, not an 8th
Prelude bar 73 : I don't hear the two 64ths
Fugue bars 56-63: You could do more with distinguishing the soprano and alto voices here
Fugue bars 76-79: I don't sufficiently hear the alto voice
Fugue bar 78: There seems to be a missing note in the LH
Fugue bar 81: A little hesitation between bars 80 and 81 ?
Some of the trills in the fugue are a little less good than others.

Both are a little slow for my taste (although I am probably a bit too swift in the prelude) but as usual very concise and clear-headed playing. And also intuitive

I will put these on the site, but as from your next submission, can you please start doing the names and ID3 tags right ? See this post

viewtopic.php?f=12&t=5115

Techneut wrote:






That´s absolutely right, Chris! I have played an eigth there instead of a 16th, don´t know why it happened.



I personally hear the two 64th very well, but they could be rhythmically a little bit sharper.



That´s a nice idea of interpretation. Usually I do such things. One could do the same at the parallel place (bars 25-32).



I hear the alto voice. I just bring out the subject in the soprano and take the alto a bit back. But it would be principally a possibility to bring out the nice "obligaten" counterpoint at one or the other place instead of the subject, because of its absolute beautiful sighing-motifs. In every case that´s a matter of interpretation.



Right, g-sharp in the alto voice on the fourth beat is totally missing. I already have noticed that during the first listening to my recording, but I have to admit, I was too lazy to cut it out.



No, there is no hesitation between the bars 80 and 81, but there is little hesitation between bar 81 and 82,which is fully intentional, because it´s the highpoint of the sequence shortly before end. I wanted to underline that a bit. (Just an individual idea.)



Well, I would say all trills in the fugue are o.k. except the trill in the bass in bar 70, which is a bit too slow. I have to admit I would have to practice to get it faster (it´s with first and third finger from a black to a white key, quite uncomfortable).



Thanks for that, Chris.



Of course, I have seen that new post first after having done my new posts. Next time I will consider the advices there.

Thank you for your valuable remarks and help, Chris. It´s always a pleasure to go into detail with Bachs music!:D

Ok, Andreas, this is up. Sounded fine to me. One little thing....next time you submit a recording, can you please tag and name it properly? There is a 'sticky note' at the top of this Audition room forum that explains how to do that. It saves us time in processing submissions. Thank you

Hi Andreas,

I loved listening to this P & F in F#. The prelude has a festive quality to it and in the coda the cadencial close with the ornament is very beautiful. The fugue is animated and very uplifting throughout. Both are very ingratiating pieces. Excellent playing!

David

Hi Andreas,
I listened to your prelude and fugue, there is clarity in both recordings and I enjoyed listening to them.

About the prelude- I don’t have the score (in fact I the only own Bach’s 2 part inventionen urtext) the trills starting at 1:27 were even and complemented the running bass in the left hand. For criticism, I thought in the beginning sounded to soft, almost mp to my ears. Your ending is powerful and perhaps you are trying to build the dynamics to the end?

About the fugue- I enjoyed the right hand leading the piece from the beginning and the left hand joining in later. It is clear to me you have practiced this piece a lot, your technical mastery shows. I imagine the score doesn’t have any rests, just moments of less note density (I assume this of all bach pieces I played one of his inventions last semester and it was the case with it) so it is impressive to me that you were able to keep your energy till the final cadence.

Happy New Year, look forward to more recordings from you

~Riley

Very good as always! If I should add any criticism (kind of the purpose of the forum right?) it would be that sometimes, I have the feeling that the different melody lines are competing rather than cooperating. But this is also a matter of taste.
The way I like it, is that a) they work together and share dynamics, crescendos and this usually works best in forte passages or b) give each other room so that one is dominant over the other(s). Very difficult, I know and of course, Bach himself could hardly do that on the instruments he had. But now when we have the piano...

But as already said, very well done!

Pianolady wrote:


Thank you for your advices, Monica. Chris already reminded me above and I assure you I will try my best to make perfect tags next time. Sorry, that I didn't note your topic only since it was too late (I already had posted my recordings.)

Rachfan wrote:


Thank you, David, for your appreciated and encouraging words! I agree also to your attributes characterizing the mood of the pieces.

Pianoman342 wrote:


Thanks for your appreciated comment, Riley!



That's interesting. I didn't notice that. Indeed, may be at the beginning I was in a more lyrical mood that at the end. May be I should overhaul my interpretation concerning that aspect.
On the other hand it's also a nice idea to augment the dynamics to the end in the sense of a final climax.



Yes, indeed so it is. There are places in which one of the voices has a break and there is less density of notes. The inventions also are like this, but have another form than the fugues. (Whereas there are some preludes in WTC in invention-stlye.)
Thanks for the praise. One of my most important aims while playing fugues is to bring the structure (form) to consciousness also by playing the subject in many of the cases a bit more intensive than the counterpoints.



Thank you, Riley, I'm also looking forward on more recordings from you (may be you will have another new nice composition for me to play). Have a Happy New Year, too!

Robert wrote:


Thank you for your praise and inspiring ideas, Robert!
In every case we should use the advantages of modern piano today when playing Bach on such expensive devices (and not on these cheap harpsichords, organs ). My aim always is to bring out the structure (form) by underlining subjects by playing most of them a bit louder than the counterpoints, on the other hand there also often are beautiful respective meaningful counterpoints I like to underline the same way (here I take back the subject). For me playing Bach-fugues on piano is like puting spotlights on certain elements (motifs, subjects, counterpoints) while bringing out in the same moment the psychical structures behind the formal structures by dynamics, articulation and agogics. For me most of the fugues are like dialogues between different people and there are moments of "competing" and of "cooperating", which indeed depends on the psychical moment of the music (which is subjective, of course). May be the impression of "competing" here in this interpretation is dominant because I do quite a lot things concerning "within-differentiation" of voices in that fugue.

A Happy New Year to you! Very nice you commented on my recording.

I just promoted it on Twitter too .

That's good, only you got the name half wrong...

Forgive me. I'm a bit tardy chiming in.

This for me is one of Bach's great preludes. I suppose that's a bit odd to say.

But you come very close to my view of it. No one on record gets it right emotionally, except for Feinberg, who reveals/unravels this little prelude in all its magnificence. But as I say, I find many subtle insights in your version, which insights, btw, i think in this very narrow instance can only be revealed when the piece is played at exactly the tempo you adopted. I don't have the sheet m. in front of me, but there is some indecision at 146 sec., where the going gets "tough," as they say; but that is easily overcome with time/practice.

So this is excellent stuff, because really no one hits the mark on this prelude, and you are already so quickly very close to the target.

All of us are constrained by TIME, needless to say; so I can't comment on the little things, which little things are easy to correct anyway, and don't really matter much, in any case, when the soul you have already captured!

JG