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Many of Brahms's exercises are great preparation for playing Bach.


John

I think I'll follow Tureck's book to the letter, and see where it takes me. I can always unlearn and re-learn if I feel the need. I get the feeling that she knows her stuff, and anything I learn will not be detrimental to my progress.

And that is what should be learned from this discussion. I studied piano, organ and harpsichord at university and quickly gained an appreciation for the phrasing that occurs naturally as a result of using baroque fingering techniques.

Once you understand and use baroque phrasing, any fingering and pedalling that respects that phrasing is fine.

Let us know how it goes, it sounds interesting

Speaking of legato - one of the most useful things I have learned by playing Bach without pedal is that the modern style of pianistic legato playing isn't really required (or even appropriate, IMO) most of the time. I was so deep in the rut of thinking that a musical line was usually created by using legato that it came as something of a revelation to realize it wasn't the only way - you don't have to connect all of the dots all of the time, after all.

I didn't really get to study Baroque music tradition in that much detail, but I was taught Baroque fingering last year and I find whenever there's a passage that I find awkward, if I switch to the Baroque fingering and phrasing it actually ends up sounding better too. I'm sold.