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Greetings all. Anyone heard of Bela Bartoks' edited books 1 and 2 of Bach's prelude and fugues? I have Bartok's 6 Roumanian Dances, and liked the fingering, and figured Bartok's fingering for Bach's music would be pretty good...anybody know about these?

Thanks

Nobody has heard of Bartok's editions of Bach's prelude and fugues? Gads! lol

I didn't know he had edited Bach. I have a book of Mozart sonatas that were editid by him. To be honest, his fingering is really weird, and the Romantic assumptions made about the music are gastly. So IMHO, his edition of Bach would probably be the same way.

John

I hardly ever follow fingerings exactly as marked in books anyway. Depending on the situation that is. For example chopins prelude no. 18, now there is a piece where fingering suggestions are necessary. I would of had to spend a week alone coming up with a fingering that suited that piece.

Tuthfully, fingering is the result of so many different causes IMO. i.e. speed, note durations, hand size, articulation, and the uniqueness of each individual pianists hands, to name a few.
So I would say that if this is the edition you already posses I'm sure it's fine, but I would'nt go out of my way to get it. Especially with bach, your probably going to find that your fingering is going to differ a bit from almost everybody elses, even bartoks. I have a friend in Arizona who plays tons of bach like I do and we compare fingerings sometimes on the phone, youd be amazed at how different some of our fingerings are. for book one of the wtc prelude in b-flat minor our fingerings are like night and day.

Really, fingering is the only thing that changes alot from Bach edition to Bach edition cause there are no tempo or dynamic markings, and all the phrasing is mostly universal among the editions that I've seen.

Bach Enthusiast,

In this case it isn't just the fingering... Bartok was deep in the Romantic way of 'fixing' things for Romantic tastes. As I said above, I have a book of Mozart Sonatas edit by him. The phrasing is aweful, and so are the edited dynamic markings. This is in addition to the weird finginering, which I ignored right off.

For the most part, I stick with the Urtext or very lightly edited editions. I find that they are easier to read than trying to dig through the added phrasing and dynamic markings.

John