Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Pianist Corner Need help with Bach's Chromatic Fantasy Bwv 903

hey friends,

I was wondering if somebody could help me with the fingering for this brilliant piece.


Here is the sheet:
Bach

Even 1 page or less would be awesome!

I think you better be narrower about what you're asking, like maybe specifying one spot. I don't think you can expect someone to give their fingering for the entire section.

Let me suggest also that if someone really needs help on the fingering for an entire piece, the piece is probably harder than what they should be working on. I'm not saying this necessarily applies to you, but if you really are at a loss for the fingering of the whole piece or a whole section, it probably does.

+1

If it is a passage that you're having trouble with, please provide measure numbers or even better, post a picture of those measures in question (as there are a few different versions of this piece floating around).

Maybe this is as good a place as any (or no worse at least) for me to ask:
HOW DO YOU DO THAT?

I asked before, but the answers didn't work. Or maybe I didn't really understand them. I've tried a number of times to do this but have never been able.


There are?
I know that there are some spots where the music isn't exactly 'written out' -- like, the notation is just chords but they are commonly understood just to be an outline for what we're supposed to do, which is to come up with some arpeggiated figuration. I wonder if you mean just that some editions show written-out suggestions for those figurations, and that different editions have different suggested versions? (Which would be understandable.) Or do you mean different versions besides anything about those chords?

+2. Not only that but the link given has perfectly good fingering suggestions on it already, and the bits that don't are fairly basic arpeggios. As fingering challenges go, this is one of the easier pieces in the repertoire, so I think the OP is probably not quite ready for this one. One thing about Bach though is that there's plenty of it - you're bound to find something you like at the level you are at.

I'll do it assuming you're working from an online version of the score (I'm on a Mac so I'm doing this from memory): If you are on a PC you can do it using Paint. You first take a screen shot of the page with the score, then paste that into a new Paint document. Then you can use the button that is a dotted line making a square. Drag this to cut out only the portion you want, then CtrlC to copy and Ctrl V to paste it in a new paint document. Save the new document.

Then you have to upload the file to a website somewhere, like Flicker.com, and then in PW use the "Enter an Image" button and select insert non-floating image, then enter the url for the image you uploaded to Flicker (you can probably get this by right-click on the image in Flicker and select Copy Image URL, then paste that into the PW url window.

I think you can do similarly with a scan, but you would just open the scan in Paint.

I've not yet done this on a Mac, so not sure how one would do that.


I should have been more clear...several different editions with suggestions for the arpeggiation of the chords as well as written-out embellishments.

The second and third versions given at IMSLP have fingerings.

http://imslp.org/wiki/Chromatic_Fantasia_and_Fugue,_BWV_903_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian)

Strange that the Busoni edition you posted only has fingerings for the Fantasy.

I don't think it's inappropriate to ask for a fingered edition for any level piece. Godowsky included detailed fingerings for virtually all his compositions.

It may or may not be true that this piece is too challenging for the OP, but there are many editions of this piece with fingering and by the logic some have used why should editors ever include fingering for this piece? And what about the tons of Beethoven Sonata editions with detailed fingerings?

Finding a comfortable fingering for a fugue always seems to be more than half the challenge!

The problem is not about asking for fingering at all, but the fact that the OP requested fingerings for the whole piece (or that is how it seems, which is why further clarification was asked for). Even editions that have fingerings don't show fingerings for everything. If editions already have fingering, including the one the OP posted, then either they are asking for every note to be fingered (which suggests they should look at some more rudimentary pieces of music to learn standard fingering principles) or they are asking for fingering in a specific passage which they failed to request.

Yes.
It's interesting how easily things may be misunderstood.
He missed that the thing about the piece perhaps being too advanced wasn't an independent thing but a likely inference from how much fingering the OP seemed to be asking for.

P.S. Thanks for the reply about the different versions, and especially for all that info regarding how we show parts of a score. And yes, I have a Mac, but, I guess I'm just too primitive with computer stuff to get past square 1: you lost me at "Paint"! I have no idea what that is, and don't think I have it.
BTW, I don't expect you to take me through it any further, just bemoaning my primitivosity.

The edition the OP posted has no fingerings for the Fugue. It's perfectly reasonable that the OP was just looking for other fingered editions besides the Busoni.

You seem to be ignoring the main point about this, which was the amount, as she stated first:

"The problem is not about asking for fingering at all, but the fact that the OP requested fingerings for the whole piece (or that is how it seems, which is why further clarification was asked for)...."

The OP didn't specify fingering for the Fugue. In fact, they asked for "even just page 1 or part of it" which implies to me they want the finger numbers for all the notes - and not only the fugue which is not on page one.

Not at all. By posting other fingered editions, I gave the OP the sources for fingering for the entire piece and it took a few minutes of looking on my part.

Better than telling the OP that his question is inappropriate, he's not ready to play the piece, etc. If the editions don't offer enough suggestions for either specific places or the entire piece, then the OP can ask for more help.

Possibly, but that's not what I assumed.

We saw "between the lines" differently than you did. Who was right? We don't know.

But I'd bet you.

That goes without saying.

So does what followed.

Woops, you did it again.

What are we talking about again?