Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Im Not Comfortable When Playing Bach And Mozart

I would just like to point out that whether you are playing Classical or Romantic repertoire, the mechanism of the instrument and the anatomy of the body does not change. If you have a healthy technique, you will have enough control at the piano to create a wide range of sounds that are appropriate for different periods.

Your general statement doesn't take into account hand size. I've got decent technique but no matter how much better I get, my hands won't get any bigger.

< In my reading, I have never come across claim or any reliable evidence of this. > [this was an earlier question about Bach's supposedly large hands, to which this poster offers a response]

Guess you'll need to go read more. The gushing tribute about this, by CFD Schubart in 1784-5, is on page 369 of the New Bach Reader or #903 in Bach-Dokumente III. It says Bach could reach a twelfth with the left hand and play other stuff with the middle fingers in this,
simultaneously.

However, that remark, being only about the left hand, has me a bit suspicious (and I jotted a marginal note to myself in my copy of NBR, some years ago). On instruments with short-octave basses, that's only the span of a tenth since the lowest notes are playing a third lower than they look. It's still a decent-sized span. Was Schubart referring to fully-chromatic instruments all the way down, or possibly to somebody's recollection of a performance on a short-octave? There's a bunch of 17th century stuff, and on into Reincken, that can't be played as written unless there's a short-octave bass.

Bach didn't write anything [to my hands' knowledge from playing all of it] in his keyboard music requiring more than a tenth, other than the trick from the D minor English Suite that I've already mentioned, plus the one spot in Contrapunctus 13 where one somehow has to play low G, middle C#, and high Bb. And that one works decently enough arpeggiated. (Like the way violinists have to arpeggiate passages that look on the page like three- or four-string chords.)

< Remember also that the octave span on normal keyboards available in Bach's time was a little less than that normally found on a modern grand piano. >
Define "normal" -- but in general I agree with the rest of that statement, other than "normal" not existing. Sometimes the spans were smaller (some French and some German), sometimes they were about the same as a modern grand, and sometimes they were larger (some Flemish and Italian). 18th century French harpsichords averaged about 159mm to the octave, while modern piano is 164 or 165. Some of the Couchets were 167 or bigger.

Bach allegedly liked the layout of a Mietke harpsichord that was slightly narrower than the typical French size...which would make it somewhere in the high 150s. That's a bit of a circumstantial argument (albeit a weak one) for not having abnormally large hands.

Narrower spans on the keyboard don't necessarily make it easier to play, anyway. They create different problems, in needing to keep the motions small and having less margin of error. My harpsichords here have 164, and reed organ at 162...but my clavichord has only 157. That much of a difference makes it harder to play, and not only from habit. The 7-mm reduction per octave still doesn't let me reach any comfortable eleventh, or make any of the tenths much better either, but it does make the tightly confined hand positions more treacherous than on 164.

That's your choice, and that's fine. But I know of no good evidence that using a technique designed for the particular action of a harpsichord or fortepiano necessarily gives better results than a more contemporary technique as it has evolved on the modern piano with its stiffer feel and double escapement action. Mimic a Baroque keyboardist at the harpsichord if you wish, but do not presume without good argument or evidence, that that approach makes for the best sounding fugue on a modern instrument.

it might make the OP more comfortable to practice without pedal...for a while. the music will sound lush and melodic when the pedal returns.

I enjoy bach immensely. it is so rewarding to learn because it is difficult. to get in the groove, the first four preludes of WTC I are great teaching pieces. I also rely on 'listening' as i learn. I put the pieces on my ipod and become intimately familiar with the twists and turns of melody... even going so far as to play along with the recording. Have a listen to the immense organ works that Bach wrote and you can glimpse the breadth of his vision.

best of luck.

Generally, Classical and Baroque consists of scales and close intervals, whereas much of Romantic and later music has larger leaps and arpeggios.

I'm smiling as I hear in my mind the prelude in D minor from WTC 1 with its wicked fast right hand broken chord pattern and its jumping around left hand.

Yes I agree that the hand naturally falls differently when playing scalar runs in Mozart in comparison to the rapidly moving chords in a Rachmaninoff prelude. If that's all KBK meant, fine. But this is quite a bit different than learning an entirely different style of playing in order to approach Bach or Mozart. And it's certainly not the crabbed curled-finger style often advocated by one of our more idiosyncratic posters here (who I won't name, but whose screen name starts with a g ).

Thanks for the input Morodiene. The other reason 'crabbed curled-finger' playing works for the 18th century is the freedom non-legato gives you. In Bach you don't need to join 'ardly any notes. As for 'g' - leave sleeping...

What's all this talk about non-legato and Bach? ....

I am nervous because with Bach and Mozart, there is just less notes to hide behind and feels like twice the content.

IMO what's this talk about most of what we're seeing here?

I think the main answer is just that those types of music are harder to play well on the piano, for the great majority of people. It's not like Batuhan is way off the mark in some way and that some clue will change this for him or for most of us. But I do think many of the things that are being said here are aspects of why they're harder.

I think Jdhampton's post said a lot of it:


That, plus the differences between our piano and the "original" instruments, as has been said.

What's all this talk about non-legato and Bach?

The instruments definately have something to do with it, but in the end - if someone can play Schumann, they should be able to play some Mozart.