{"id":37,"date":"2010-03-15T15:32:31","date_gmt":"2010-03-15T15:32:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.joesamuel.co.uk\/2010\/03\/15\/on-bach-to-shostakovich\/"},"modified":"2011-01-18T22:23:22","modified_gmt":"2011-01-18T22:23:22","slug":"on-bach-to-shostakovich","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.joesamuel.co.uk\/wordpress\/2010\/03\/15\/on-bach-to-shostakovich\/","title":{"rendered":"On Bach to Shostakovich"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Bach and Shostakovich<\/span><\/p>\n

About 15 years ago I discovered Shostakovich\u2019s preludes and fugues for piano.\u00a0 The story goes that he was a judge at a Bach piano competition and heard Tatanya Nickolyova playing the Bach preludes and fugues.\u00a0 He was so taken by her playing of Bach\u2019s masterpieces that he set about writing a set of 24 preludes and fugues of his own for her to play.\u00a0 There is a recording of her playing these pieces which is amazing to hear, but there is also a recording of Keith Jarrett, better known for his jazz improvisations, playing these pieces that is quite mind-blowing.<\/p>\n

It was Keith Jarrett\u2019s playing that made me determined to learn some of the harder preludes and fugues, and I jumped in with both feet, attempting to learn the trickiest ones I could find.\u00a0 I failed.\u00a0 I realised my technique was simply not up to the delicate finger work required by the writing, and I wondered why that was.\u00a0 I soon realised that years of playing Chopin and Rachmaninoff had rendered my left hand incapable of playing anything delicate and accurate.\u00a0 A comment made by my violin teacher at University came to my mind, \u201cYou should learn some Bach\u201d.<\/p>\n

It seemed fitting really to start with Bach, as he had been the inspiration for Shostakovich.\u00a0 I duly purchased the Bach Well Tempered Clavier which is his set of Preludes and Fugues.\u00a0 I dived in and learned a few of the easier pieces without too much difficulty.\u00a0 Then I tried some of the more complex fugues.\u00a0 I was lost.\u00a0 I decided to learn the preludes and fugues from Book 2 in order so as not to avoid anything I felt I found too hard.<\/p>\n

15 years later and I am on number\u00a0 17 of 24.\u00a0 Admittedly there have been large gaps due to children, laziness, life in general, but I am far from disheartened.\u00a0 In fact the only concern I have is whether I have enough life to complete this task and move on! At the present rate it will be another 7 years to the end of Book 2, but what about Book 1?<\/p>\n

I feel as though I am still heading back towards Shostakovich, but I had no idea of the wonder, beauty and intelligence of Bach.\u00a0 I am totally involved in his music, his treatment of line and form, his experimentation and his lyricism.\u00a0 Bach for me is to played in the morning, as a meditation, a tonic, an escape from an unstructured world into one who\u2019s structure is the world.<\/p>\n

I thought I was going to move on from Bach, through Scarlatti, Mozart, Schubert and eventually back to Shostakovich.\u00a0 Instead I am happily ensconced.\u00a0 I have no need to move on for I feel I am learning all\u00a0 need to know here.\u00a0 I have barely played the Shostakovich Preludes and Fugues since, except for sometimes while teaching.\u00a0 They wait for me, waiting until I am mature enough, accomplished enough, knowledgeable enough to play them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Bach and Shostakovich About 15 years ago I discovered Shostakovich\u2019s preludes and fugues for piano.\u00a0 The story goes that he was a judge at a Bach piano competition and heard Tatanya Nickolyova playing the Bach preludes and fugues.\u00a0 He … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joesamuel.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joesamuel.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joesamuel.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joesamuel.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joesamuel.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.joesamuel.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38,"href":"https:\/\/www.joesamuel.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37\/revisions\/38"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.joesamuel.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joesamuel.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.joesamuel.co.uk\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}