Anyone working on these? They are heavenly to listen to, but ###### to play! Which one did you start with? Does your teacher make you or show you the harmonic relevance of these pieces? My head is gonna explode!!

I'm warming up with the double to the sarabande from the D minor partita, but will start on the E Maj Partita soon. Any hints?

Yes me!!!!

I've started with the first half of the 'Presto' from No. 1 in Gminor. I'm also looking at the 'Corrente' and the 'Giga' from Sonata No.4 in D minor.

I'm only at the start of these and playing them very slowly (but hopefully evenly). Most (ok, all) of the Sonatas are actually far too hard for me ( ) but the shifting and stretching is beginning to kick-in and the first page of the 'Presto' is now quite fluent.. but sloooooowww

These pieces are the very reason I took up the violin and I'm ecstatic to be actually playing them myself now. I reckon if I keep this up for the next ten years I might even be able to play a couple of the movements properly!!!

But my real ambition is to play the Adagio from Sonata No.5 in C major (probably never in a million years will my fingers do that! )

My Rachel Podger recording is on my Mp3 (bedroom), my itouch, in my car, on the kitchen stereo.......

And me!!

I can't remember which one I'm doing though, obviously too busy trying to read the music I didn't bother with the title.

It's extra strange for me because I realise I used to play some of them on the clarinet 18 years ago

They are difficult. I've found I have to really work on getting the right notes for a few weeks and then I can attempt some sort of musical interpretation. I stress atttempt, it's not happened yet.

Which recordings are you listening to and where did you get them? Stupidly it hadn't really ocurred to me there would be recordings... doh! I'm not used to paying music that would actually have been recorded by someone.

They may be hard, but I'm sure they must be good for me!

The first I started on was Partita no. 2 (three of the five movements - not the Sarabande or Ciaconne). That was about eight years ago, and I don't think I ever got them particularly musical; I don't think I was really ready for them at that time. I am now playing the Allegro Assai from Sonata no.3, and I have a deal with my violin teacher that once I pass Grade 8, I can learn a whole sonata (I want to do Sonata no. 1). The Allegro Assai is hard - it is so fast, and has a ridiculous number of notes in it, and I actually find it quite sore to play: my palm in a sort of triangle between my thumb and first finger gets incredibly painful; a couple of times I have actually had to stop practising as it was unbearable.

Lizzy: as far as I understand, there are a LOT of recordings of the complete sonatas and partitas, although somehow they don't seem that easy to get hold of: I have never seen them in HMV, and they often seem to be out of stock on Amazon! I did get a copy for Christmas, I really wanted the Perlman recording (I think this was recorded in the sixties: it is certainly not a recent recording!) but it went out of stock, and I was given the Arthur Grumiaux one instead. I think it's a good recording, though I have not heard many others to compare it with! (I did find Menuhin playing the Allegro Assai on YouTube, and thought the Grumiaux recording was better). I have heard great things about the Rachel Podger recording though, and my violin teacher likes Hilary Hahn's.

Of course - otherwise you can't play them even half way decently! Look at the relationship between the main mvts and doubles of the Bm Partita for instance, or the structure of the 1st mvts of the 1st+2nd sonatas.
I'm preparing the Bm Partita atm for a bunch of recitals It's my fave in a way, since it has no weak mvts. Before, I learnt the Gm sonata for the 2nd time for auditions. My first solo Bach was the Dm 1st-4th mvts.

I'm doing allegro assai and gavotte en rondeau, allegro assai isn't bad but the gavotte en rondeau is solid! Well, it's not the whole piece that's hard, 80% of it is fine but the other 20% is so so so difficult! There are odd bars here and there that i just cannot get my head/fingers around!! All the double stops get so confusing I want to be able to play it through but when i get to these bars i just have to stop and go through it all slowly... all part of the practise though! It's annoying cause pieces are usually generally hard, or generally easy, but this is a complete mixture

I am getting the Rachel Podger recording from my library this week. She played in the bach festival with my conductor last year, and I've heard wonderful things about her style!




I also find playing them slow for a few weeks to make sure my fingerings and intonation is decent, then work on attemtping musical interpretation is the way to go!! Yeah , not happening for me yet.
My favorite recording is Hilary Hahn, unfortunately, she did not do a full set, only the D minor and E Maj Partita and C major sonata. Her playing is surreal and i find myself listening to her version most of the time. I also have Perlman's full set and Author Grumiaux (I was told everyone should listen to his). But I always go back to Hahn's.




The sonata's are still way ahead of me...I'm so jealous!!!





You mean Gavotte and rondeau is harder than allegro assai?

I picked the double to the sarabande myself (coz it looks easier), and my teacher said, you can't really just play this without the sarabande part for performance... sad.... so, i guess I either negotiate with her if I should do the D minor one first or E major.

Which one is easier? D minor's key signature is definately alot easier for me!!

Yeah as in i find this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOVdXr_P02M...feature=related
a lot easier than this one http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L05xsjRvFEw


am i just weird?

No, I think it's much easier too! People often study the Allegro Assai and whichever mvt it's paired with quite early as the notes are pretty simple, whereas the G en R is a complete pain in the ######...the key signature and modulations combined with the double stops is bad enough, but making it sound decent and spirited as well......it's a really difficult one!

Fayewolf, try Milstein. It might get you off Hahn If he doesn't, no-one will.

Am I being really thick - I can't find the Allegro Assai in my book and it says 'Sonatas and Partitas' on the cover but only seems to have the Sonatas inside

.. and yet is the Allegro Assai not from the Sonata No.3???

Oh I think the Partitas are in a separate book... no, I can't find a book with just Partitas????

Lottie,

Which edition of S&P are you using? I thought most edition will put all 6 together, it's a thin book!!

Allegro Assai is from the C major Sontata No. 3, the last movement.

Are you sure the partitas not in there?

It's the yellow 'Shirmer's Library' edition.. I'll have another look at the Cmaj...

Hmmm... i don't have that edition, but i looked online, it should have 6 pieces in it, 3 partitas and 3 sonatas. The edition I have is the Barenreiter Urtext, which has absolutely NO fingerings!!

Oops Found it!

But in my book the Sonata in C is number five not number three

Oh well, at least I had a chance to try out the first line... but it's now my first bookmark

That's because it's arranged Sonata 1, Partita 1, Sonata 2, Partita 2, Sonata 3, Partita 3...
Faye, it has no fingerings because it's the original manuscript without an editor putting their ideas all over it. For Bach, that is ideal. I have the Urtext too, and refer to 3 other editions if I want to check a fingering, but once you get used to Bach the fingerings become very obvious, often there's only really one fingering that works.

Ahh The Shirmer edition just lists them as Sonata 1, Sonata 2, Sonata 3 ...etc which is probably why I was confused about whether the Partitas were actually in there

Do you have a recommendation on which edition for fingering reference? Thanks!!

Auer, Joachim, Galamian, Flesch, Szeryng...whatever. Like I said there's not all that much difference because often there is only 1 decent fingering. I think the Galamian edition is published with the original manuscripts in the front half and Galamian's fingerings in the second half. If it is that edition which does the originals, get that (although more for the original manuscript than the other stuff - it's fascinating seeing what Bach really wrote, and the artistry that went into the originals). Try to start figuring out your own fingerings though, and THEN double check with your other edition

How I wish!

I play a couple of movements on the guitar (and did the G en R for guitar grade 8) but am a long, long way from doing them on the violin. One day though, they will be mine.

I have the Barenreiter edition which I got more for use with the guitar than the violin (I didn't play the violin when I bought it) but it's waiting for the day.

There's a couple of editions in the Werner Icking music archive incidentally for anyone who doesn't have a copy already.

As for recorded versions. I've got both the Perlman and the Podger. Both great and inspirational in different ways.

Cheers,

Matt.

I have the edition from the International Music Company, I've had it for 18 years. I did'nt have the technique in those days so I taught myself and now I can play several of the movements. I've memorized the adagio from sonata no, 1 and working on the interpretation. I found Maxim Vengerov's DVD very inspiring and interesting analogy between the music and Gothic architecture......the columns are represented by the chords and the arches are the melodic lines in between. I play the fuga but there are still a few tricky spots. The siciliana is nice and short but I might memorize the presto before that because I play it a lot, just been to lazy I suppose, but there's no hurry.
We had a short discussion in an other forum about the rhythm in baroque times, or the tactus, such as in the presto. The first three bars are in ternary rhythm then returns to the binary with the ternary reoccurring at places where the motif will determine this rhythm. This is all the discussion I've seen so far, but every thing you need to know is in the recordings because I've heard this music played so many ways. From very fast in strict tempo to much slower with varying degrees of rubato, it's all good, I think.
I read in my album cover that Bach wrote this music for a virtuoso violinist of the time, but I'm inclined to believe that he really did write the S&P's for students to study techniques, as demonstrated by the many ways it has be interpreted.

I'm working on the Violin Sonata no.1 atm on the guitar, have done the fugue, siciliana and presto, and need to work on the Adagio. I think it sounds fantastic on the guitar, translates very well.

Absolutely, I've heard the Chaconne played on the classical guitar many times. I used to play the classical guitar before it took second place to the violin. Imagine the S&P's played on the organ, translate well there too I think.

Do you include added chordal accompaniments?
Do you employ the binary and ternary tactus where appropriate?
Do you use any rubato or do you keep a strict tempo?