Bach WTK II Project

One prelude and fugue a week, every week.

[bachwtk2project]

I’m still alive!

I’ve had a good few weeks off Bach, mostly because I was in at New Music on the Point - an incredible journey to the middle of nowhere in Vermont where people like Roomful of Teeth and JACK Quartet came to mentor composers and performers.

I was there with my wonderful duo partner as a vn/pf combination and two weeks of music-making among some very generous souls and enthusiastic people helped us both get over some of our initial nervousness at travelling that far to meet people we didn’t know. I was original worried that such a new music thing meant that the people were going to be severe, strict Darmstadt School types, but that proved quickly not to be the case, and we were warmly welcomed as visitors from across the pond.

So: two weeks in Vermont, playing concerts of new music (which I love), and working in an environment where composers outnumbered performer-types (for once!) was absolutely incredible. It definitely saved me from my jadedness at dealing with yet another school year and yet another exam glut, and the sheer amount of sun and greenery and fresh air helped a lot too - even for such a city slicker as I am. 

View from my cabin

I also got to spend three days in New York meeting friends, both from my time at university and from Facebook music groups - more friends! - and bookshop hopping. I walked for hours every day, ended up playing foosball in a pub at 1.30am once, and experienced the frustrations of the metro more than once. 

So yes, I feel very refreshed, and like a completely different person, which was not what I thought I’d feel as I was packing for the trip at the very beginning of June. Back to Bach - D sharp minor awaits!

[bachwtk2project]

Day 126: Still no progress

I went to watch Kaufmann sing Strauss’s Four Last Songs and had a surprisingly disappointing evening. Keep your hands off the soprano rep, please, Mr. Heldentenor.

[bachwtk2project]

Day 124-125: Lagging

I’ve memorised the prelude and can play the fugue fluently at this point, but the past three days of an absolutely batshit rehearsal schedule has left me struggling for time to practice and also quite burnt out. I’m going to call this week a defeat and give myself a few more days to memorise, especially as I’m accompanying for 12 exams next week, while preparing for concerts outside of London on the weekend. 

The prelude is starting to settle in comfortably, though, and I’ve started playing it at a higher tempo than I originally intended. The main reason for doing so: 

which becomes almost excruciating at any tempo where quavers could be construed as the beat. As such, I’m playing it in moderate 4-in-a-bar, or even a slow 2. 

I’ve also decided that the fugue will have the exact same crotchet beat as the prelude. Again, this is similar treatment to what I did in the A minor.

[bachwtk2project]

Day 122-123: Unproductivity

I memorised one more page of the prelude over the last two days, which is really unacceptable, but I’m feeling a little backs-to-the-wall at the moment with the amount of stuff I have to do. Tomorrow might be a little better, and I might actually finish learning the fugue in the morning, but tonight I will have an early night, so I can wake at 7am tomorrow. Let’s see how things go. 

I do find this a little thornier than the other ones, because there are some ... casual dissonances that arise in the two-part texture that really obfuscate the harmonic progressions. Look:

The end of the bar leads toward A sharp minor, but the chord change over the 2nd to 4th beats isn’t something found commonly elsewhere in Bach. The following example is even stranger:

Beat 2 - ????

[bachwtk2project]

Day 121: D sharp minor

I can’t believe I’m embarking on the last third of the WTK 2. 

The prelude in this one has more than a passing likeness to the A minor prelude, both being two-part inventions with chromatic characteristics and being built almost completely of invertible counterpoint. They’re also in 4/4 with continuous semiquaver motion and a sprinkling of demisemiquavers, and exhibit strikingly similar ending cadences.

I’ve memorised the first half of the prelude, which is more than I’ve usually managed on a Monday. Tomorrow I’ll learn the fugue, and hopefully memorise the rest of the prelude - some really far out chromatic weirdness in there...!!

[bachwtk2project]

Video 16: A major!

120 days of Bach, and this has been a fun ride so far, though the constant fretting about memorising time definitely wears down the spirit. 

Anyway, I did all of the prelude yesterday - surprisingly productive - though Tumblr seems to have eaten my Day 119 post. I now live something like three minutes’ walk from this room, so that’s a massive plus for my Sunday recording sessions. 

[bachwtk2project]

Day 117-118: Fugue down

...Prelude to go!

I started memorising this one from the fugue first, which is the first time I’ve done that in the whole project. This fugue is a good meandering one (in a way that I didn’t find C major to be), and the semiquaver figuration is more logically derived from the theme than the passagework found in the C major. 

I’ve had a long week, and I’m looking forward to getting some more practice (finally!) tomorrow morning. Then there’s the afternoon to evening filled with rehearsals, and I’ll be able to work a little more in the night - probably revision time for the page and a half I have to memorise tomorrow to keep on schedule for a Sunday recording. Toodle-oo!

[bachwtk2project]

Day 115-116: A major

Learnt!

There are some pretty interesting fingering issues in the fugue, mostly a matter of how much one wants to stick to the usual distribution of scalic patterns learnt as part of foundation technique (whether to finger A major with thumb on A or B, for instance) or, if you’re me, how much thumb-on-black-key I can use before getting tired of silly gimmicks.

There’s some strangely juicy chromatic movement in the prelude: 

The part-writing in that last bar is almost jarring in the very diatonic context surrounding it, and definitely a contrast to the rather slow harmonic rhythm prevalent in the rest of the prelude.

I’m having fun so far, anyway, even though I had a little bit of an exciting day playing at Wigmore... memorisation, here I come!

Rehearsal time today.

[bachwtk2project]

Video 15: F major prelude & fugue

This was a quick record - marred only in the middle by someone walking in to borrow a music stand. I’ve cut the bum fugue out and substituted another take, but decided to keep the prelude because my time slot was running out and I wanted to get this done before I ran out of practice room time for the day. 

I think I’ll do A major this week, starting tomorrow. It’s day 114 today, and counting...

[bachwtk2project]

Video: A little bit of F major prelude, from Wigmore Hall.

I had a decent take of the full thing today but upon transferring it to the computer and opening it in Premiere Pro, everything seems to have gone to shit: there are skips in the sound and the video is somehow slower than the audio...

So I’ll re-record it tomorrow using my Zoom Q3HD, but in the meantime, here’s the start of the prelude, snatched during a quiet moment during a rehearsal break. It stops because someone opens the door and starts singing.

[bachwtk2project]

Day 112: Nearly there!

I memorised another page and a half, so it’s just a few more seconds’ worth of music left to cram into my brain. I have a good feeling about this.

In other news, my elder brother flew over from Aix-en-Provence for a few days, so there goes more practice time - I’ll be a little more free after the Wigmore gig on the 9th, which is nice. I have yet to pick a new key for next week as well.

[bachwtk2project]

Day 110-111: Urgh (press F...)

Amidst all the chaos of moving and rehearsing for 3 different projects, I've let the Prelude slip. I had the opportunity to get about an hour of practice yesterday but spent it trying to recall the C sharp major fugue and attempting to piece the fragments of the F major prelude back together into a coherent whole.

The thing is, I haven't managed to put real effort into memorising the fugue. I can play it through with good fluency, and I've got the opening third loosely in my mind plus other bits throughout the rest of the piece — but nothing solid. I might have an hour tomorrow to put into the fugue, and let's see how much progress I make then.

[bachwtk2project]

Day 107-109: Quick update

After today I’ll be able to get back on track, which I’m honestly looking forward to at this point. I’ve done a couple of repetiteur auditions (one today), and I’m honestly so embarrassed to be singing and playing at the same time in front of people who actually get to work with good singers on a daily basis. 

There’s still stuff to be unpacked, of course, but it’s mostly completed, and the new place is rather cosy. I’ve got a study in addition to my (single) room, so at least I don’t have to spend time in the bedroom all day - the psychological difference between having a piano in the house and a piano in the bedroom is pretty huge, and it’s far less distracting to not have a bed two metres from where you’re trying to learn music. 

Sweater the bunny chills in the sunlight

I’m headed to Wigmore Hall today to rehearse for the performance next week - incredibly exciting times!

[bachwtk2project]

Day 104-106: A real hiatus

I’ve had to take an actual break from practising and therefore haven’t even looked at the music for a couple days, let alone spend time at the piano. 

I’ve played 5 concerts in 4 days, and have to pack to move house, which is driving me crazy. I’ll be living in a much more central location tomorrow - one that I can barely afford - but it’ll allow me to take on more work, since travelling time will be cut short by 20-30 minutes. 

I’ll resume this project when I’ve completed the move, but meanwhile, I’m rather sad at leaving this garden behind. The gardeners only came to tidy it up a couple days ago, in preparation for spring...

[bachwtk2project]

Day 102-103: Fugue work

So I’ve memorised the prelude, which is amazing considering how haphazard my practice has been like this week. I’ve had to juggle rehearsals and performances and stress about moving house and also have y’all heard the new Bill Wurtz track? That stuff is F I R E 

Seriously though, the prelude is easily divided into four sections: Opening theme + cadence in dominant (16 bars), statement in dominant + turn towards relative minor (16 bars), development (24 bars), recapitulation + cadence in tonic (16 bars). It’s almost sonata form!

The fugue is surprisingly thorny, though again, I’m taking this as a pretty up-tempo gigue, analogous to the last movement of the 2nd English Suite. Those demisemiquavers at the end sound fantastic when tossed off at that tempo!

[bachwtk2project]

Day 100-101: F major

I checked my chart of dates and I realised I haven’t touched any F at all, so here goes. It’s going to be a tough week ahead, with 5 performances in 4 days and a conducting audition on Sunday night, so I’m going to allow myself to fail, but I’m going to work as hard as I can anyway.

The prelude has been learnt and roughly half-memorised, though I haven’t touched the fugue (this is not typical timescale) and I will definitely have to get on that tomorrow to stay on schedule. 

My timetable is starting to build up again - I should’ve done more work on this during the spring break, but here we are. Exam season will start in a month, and then it’s straight up hell for a while... but this year I’ll be going off to Vermont for a course, so there’s that to look forward to!

[bachwtk2project]

Week 14: C major

I know this isn’t perfect, I just can’t be bothered any more tonight. It’ll be good enough tomorrow lol ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Seriously though, this was very fun to learn, apart from the faff in the left hand in the second half of the fugue. I’ve really fallen hard for how good the prelude is, and I hope that the extremely liberal use of pedal helps portray the big-resonant-church colour I’m going for.