Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner What is the correct way to play Bach, musicaly?

As long as you play it like, well, music. I'm so sick of these typical, robotic performances of Bach. Bach loved the voice so much, and loved cantabile,and the voice has expressive capabilities, no? So why should keyboard music be played without any dynamic range or musical shaping (even though it should be subtle!)?

If I may presume to paraphrase landorrano: The physical act of playing this music is not difficult.

I think that added phrase removes the misunderstanding, and it was the way I originally read the post.

....and I can perhaps clarify the disagreement with this quote from Josef Hofmann:

"What makes you think we play with our hands?"

And your source for the idea that it is not the predominant view is...?

I expect to see some back-pedalling on this standpoint.

I guess that means you disagree.

You're entitled.

I think that terraced alone is too limiting, even though a harpischord is only capable of doing that.

We are trending towards stricter interpretations, after an older era of very romantic interpretations of everything (I remember my violin teacher showing me one CD of Bach that had heavy rubato and excessive vibrato all over the place). This teacher was definitely a purist, who insisted that there was only one way to play everything when it came to baroque. Maybe this trend is not such a good thing when performances of Bach become dull and predictable.

Whether it is standard or not (and I am guessing that with the better teachers, it is standard), it should be the basic starting point for playing Bach on piano. This is because of the simple and obvious reason that Bach didn't ever write anything with a sustain pedal in mind - it didn't exist. Because of that, it is a no-brainer that his non-organ keyboard music should be completely playable without it (unless you think he didn't know what he was doing).

Peyton: That's an opinion.

And in any event it's not a no brainer, among other reasons because people could differ on what "playable" means.

Maybe you want to start a separate thread on your question? You're wondering if it's "standard practice." We have a nice cross section of pianists on this site. If you start a thread on it, you'll get a good idea of how prevalent whichever view is -- from what the members' views are, and from what they may say about their teachers' views plus what they've read. My strong guess is you'll find that some people (including some "better teachers" as well as some "worse teachers") hold the "no pedal" view but most by far don't.

BTW....a fair number of people might say "mostly no pedal," or "not too much pedal," but those don't count as "no pedal," which was what you asked about.

Chopin insisted his students learned without applying pedal (it would be added later) probably because for him it was principally a loud pedal. In the case of Bach, using it in this sense is perfectly legit.

Where have you seen this???

It seems odd because much of Chopin's music is essentially meaningless without pedal. Are you maybe talking just about certain repertoire?

Old joke: A student plays an audition for a new teacher. The piece is in B major, but he plays only white notes, leaving out the sharps. The teacher interrupts and asks what the heck he's doing. The student answers, "My old teacher told me to learn notes first and then put in the expression later."

Pedal is an inherent part of much piano music, as are the sharps and flats.

You had to have been there - unpublished Streicher family letters.

+ 100

yeah right

You have to do better than that if you want to get away with a statement like you made.

BTW: I never understood if Hofmann meant that we play rather with our heart, or our head.
But it works fine either way.

http://www.epta.si/eng/wp-content/datoteke/4-chopin-as-a-teacher-and-his-pupils1.pdf is the best I can do for you - check pg 2. You'll have to wait till she publishes them like the rest of Joe Piano Public!

For teaching Bach, I agree. I lose all confidence in a teacher who introduces pedaling and crescendos and diminuendos and so on to a youngster. It distracts attention from where it should be, which is not playing.

But playing Bach is another story, to each his own in my view.

How is that an answer about the pedaling thing?
(Where is there anything like what you said about pedal???)

Nice of you to give a reference, but if you're going to send us somewhere to check something out, it would help for it to have something on what we're talking about.

I gave you the benefit of the doubt, figuring that you wouldn't give an irrelevant reference, so I even checked all 3 pages.....

Oh, I see, you don't believe me? Fine, find another attendee!

I think you lose a lot of credibility when you do something like that. You sent us to a reference that has nothing to do with what we're talking about.

OK folks, it's official: Ignore this guy's post on what Chopin supposedly said about pedaling.