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Yes - I figured that's what you were referring to. I've heard that argument for many many years. The Opus 15 can indeed be challenging from an interpretive standpoint, but the Opus 9, 13, 16, and 21 are far more difficult overall.

Agreed, and to add to your list I couldn't imagine how hard it would be to present Op. 6, 14, 16, 20, or even 17 convincingly.

Congratulations on your one-year anniversary TS! You have accomplished a lot in a short period of time.

I certainly can't offer you advice since I haven't even gotten started with Rachmaninoff. I'm still working on a Bach Invention. Anyways, just keep enjoying your piano journey!

Best regards,

Yes; I never claimed to endorse the view I put forward.

I saw how hard op.17 (the Fantasie) can be after hearing so many terrible renditions at the Cliburn competition last year!

@ TwoSnowflakes - glad to hear that you're back to piano after your hiatus, hope you'll have many more music-filled years!

Let's swing the complete other direction from Schumann and talk Bach for a mo'.

One thing I am DEAD certain I never learned to play properly was Bach. I understand some of how it works just from having studied it a bit later, but here is my sum total of Bach:

1) Various little common pieces in the early years because they're great at a basic level for kids and beginners. These were not learned as baroque but just as early pieces.

2) Later, I got thrown almost all of the inventions. I hated them, was not given (or mightily resisted) any real systematic understanding of them or baroque music in general. I don't recall being taught about how to approach it, the way it differs from classical music, any precise understanding of the ornamentation, etc. I struggled with the coordination and I'm dead certain none of them ever sounded solid.

3) There is no 3. I never did any more Bach.

I know my teacher would like to start with a Suite, but if I protest, I'm going to get Inventions, and I don't even feel ready for those, yet. I am wondering if it might not be a terrible idea to pick a suite, but because it's going to take me a long time just to get the notes in my fingers, work in parallel on some basics. Not the way these pieces are usually presented to children, but paying attention to all the detail: everything from basic touch to ornamentation, from voicing to elementary counterpoint. Just to ease me into the whole endeavor of playing Bach. Perhaps learn two lines a week of a Suite Prelude, so I don't put off getting the notes down, but be playing those basic minuets with ornamentation and everything they're supposed to be.

I found some books by Rosalyn Tureck that seem to do exactly what I would want to do. They start with some really basic stuff but aren't geared to children. They take good examples from all over the place, moving everything forward and introducing all the broad concepts you find in Bach. First book sticks mostly with Anna Magdalena's notebook, going through eight smaller pieces, but spends half the time discussing oramentation, phrasing, legato and staccato. Introduces counterpoint. Second book only has three pieces; starts with an Invention, and wraps up with a Fugue, expanding on phrasing, stylistic choices, etc. Third book works through two suites.

Is anybody familiar with them? Are they reliable? Or are there other options for me people seem to like?

http://www.tureckbach.com/publication-documentation/page/an-introduction-to-the-performance-of-bach

http://www.scribd.com/doc/47751632/Tureck-An-Introduction-to-the-Performance-of-Bach-Book-1

Have you ever studied counterpoint, TwoSnowflakes?

Not at the piano, no. By the time I was in college and wanted to know more in general about things like this, I had long since quit piano.

So, I have a birds' eye perspective from a couple of college level electives in music history and theory, but nothing AT the piano.

Which means, nothing terribly granular, but it's not a totally novel concept. I certainly recognize when a piece falls into a general counterpoint structure and can usually recognize the different lines. I can recognize the obvious sorts of common changes/movements. Yet, as for what it is specifically doing at any given time, I can't claim any kind of working knowledge.

That knowledge is crucial to playing Bach, and the more complex the piece is, the more of that knowledge you should have. So I suggest that if you plan to work on Bach, you should begin building it as soon as possible.

Hit me with some resources. I'm happy to dig in. I'll have the room to add Bach in June, and I'm happy to hit the ground running from a structural standpoint when that happens.

Counterpoint in Composition, by Salzer and Schachter, is an excellent book. It begins by teaching species counterpoint, and then applies the concepts to actual works.

Nice, thanks. I found an old handout on the super basics of voice leading. I will see what, if anything, I retained and then it seems like it would be rewarding to delve into this book, assuming it really does start at the basics. I don't mind if it gets complicated, as long it starts somewhere accessible.

Also, I can help you build a foundation, if you want.

Try out Le Petit Negre by Debussy, short, fun, interesting piece (:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEM0t3vlGjQ

http://www.allpianoscores.com/free_scores.php?id=348

That's awfully generous of you. Thanks.

You'll never see me turn down an opportunity to build a good foundation, especially if it comes with a reason to assimilate generous amounts of arcane information. It's my happy place.

You have my standing permission to reach out with any ideas/approaches you think might get me on my way.

I will send you a PM momentarily.

Since Bach didn't write any piano music, his music is superfluous for pianists to learn, IMO.

Of course, if you really like the music, that's a good reason to work on it. That's why I play it, myself. But for many years I didn't, and that was okay, too.

I'd say that one of the best Bach pieces to start on, in terms of (relative) lack of contrapuntal complexity and with emphasis more on melody and harmony - in fact, IMO, one of the most 'pianistic' of his keyboard music - is the Partita No.1 in B flat, BWV 825. It's the first keyboard piece of his that I actually enjoyed playing on the piano, and that made me want to learn it for myself, rather than because my teacher wanted me to learn it.

Prior to it, I'd already played his French Suite No.6 (because it was a set work for my Music 'O' Level exam when I was 15, and to know it well, I felt I should learn to play it) and several Inventions, the French Suite No.5 and a few of the WTC Preludes & Fugues (because my teacher taught me them, and I also had to play a couple for my piano exams), and frankly, didn't think much of them as piano music. That despite the fact I loved Bach's choral music, having sung his beautiful and moving motet Jesu, meine Freude soon after joining my new school's Chapel Choir, as well as several chorales in Sunday services, and thought that his St Matthew Passion is one of the greatest music known to man or beast....(and I'm listening to it right now as I type ).

But I never played Bach on the piano again for decades, until I decided to try out BWV 825 after hearing the Venezuelan prodigy Sergio Tiempo play it in the Concertgebouw, Amsterdam, at age 13 (where he brought such youthful freshness and uninhibited brio to it, unfettered by 'convention'). And it led me on to learn the Goldberg....

I found a few books on counterpoint at the local library, I'm finding them very informative:

Counterpoint for beginners by C.H. Kitson
Fundamental counterpoint by Hugo Norden
Preliminary exercises in counterpoint by Arnold Schoenberg

I'm taking my time with them as these are not easy for me to read.

Hi Two Snowflakes
I have enjoyed reading your thoughtful posts over the last year.

I am into my mid-seventies, have returned to playing, steady practice, over the last three years. I have enjoyed finding the forum, and reading about how playing and teaching have changed over decades. I have always loved Bach - and just about everything else classical as well as some jazz and show tunes.

When I was young and studying with several very good teachers, they advanced me from studying a few inventions directly to the preludes and fugues. I have treasured them ever since. Many are not very hard technically, but always so satisfying to play.

The interweaving of voice parts, combined with their inevitable - and sometimes surprising - harmonic progressions work for me, esp interspersed with the variety available, the delightful preludes, and the varying moods of all. Some of the adventurous chromatic stuff still amazes me when I consider the date of composition, although I wouldn't start with studying one of those.

If you could pick one or two, I think you might prefer them to the Suites, which are lovely, but not so soul-catching to my way of thinking.

Then there are also chorale arrangements - some horrendously difficult, but others not bad. They are very beautiful