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The Well-Tempered Clavier : Books I and II, Complete

The Well-Tempered Clavier : Books I and II, Complete

List Price: $11.95
Your Price: $8.96
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fantastic bargain
Review: Another incredible bargain from Dover. Although I think their edition of the Beethoven complete string quartets (in a single volume!) is probably the best buy in all of music, this edition of The Well Tempered Clavier is a strong competitor. (If only it had included The Art of Fugue!) This is the edition I recommend for my students because of the clarity, absence of artificial or misleading editorial markings, ease of page turns, and cost. It is not perfect; what edition EVER is--in this case, one of my quibbles is that of all the minor key fugues, only ONE (g# minor) ends without a piccardy (raised) third--it simply must be an oversight, and interestingly the accidental already present in the key signature is repeated unnecessarily. Surely B natural should have been B sharp in the final measure. Regardless of the slight problems, this is the single best tool to learn Baroque counterpoint in general and fugue specifically. No textbook I know of is capable of demonstrating the fluidity of form, nor describing the sophistication of melodic and contrapuntal writing that Bach employs. Every book I know of oversimplifies or even avoids the issues that Bach so admirably handles. The answers are here, in the music, not in a text. Absolutely invaluable for the serious music student.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: music is great
Review: I got this book when I just learned to play the prelude 1 c major, and thought I would look into others later, even though the majority of those preludes and fugues are far beyond my ability to play. Since then I have tried to play prelude 2 (I) and prelude 24 (II) that is extremly beautiful though not easy to play, and I have listened all preludes and some fugues from CD or midi files with this book opened in front of me. I realized how great Bach's music is. Only complaint is that the cover of the book isn't glued strong enough, which is now seperated from the content pages already after only a short period use. Also, the prelude 1 (book I) is probably the correct version, but I have seen from some other books the other version with an extra measure between bar 22 and 23. I now play it with the extra measure since it seems making sense to me.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bach had 13 childen.
Review: I've made some progress on the preludes but run out of fingers and hands on the fugues. Now with my 6 month old daughter balanced on my knee hammering and sucking the keys while I play with one hand I finally understand how Bach came to compose the fugues - a child on each knee with one hand free is enough hands for 5 parts of the fugue.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Inexpensive
Review: Like with all dover, there are better, more readible editions. However, the price is right.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Simple and complete
Review: No doubt we should be pleased with this edition, stripped clean of editorials, phrasings, and fingerings, it seems very close to the "source," as Bach wrote it without the frills and boxes of an "expert" interpretation. For a basic manuscript, this is the one, complete and clear. It elucidates how much room Bach left us to find ourselves in his music, rather than finding Czerny or Tovey. In this edition, Bach's assurances as a great teacher shine through: solve it yourself, but know that it is all possible.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: To the point.
Review: This book is very simple. You buy it, you play the pieces on there as best you can. There is no essay analyzing the 48s, just some suggestions on reading marks indicating ornamentation and such things, and on with the score. There are also no numbers indicating fingering for these pieces, so the keyboardist must take initiatives here in trying to play these pieces. If nothing else, get both books for the price alone.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Fewer Page Turns
Review: This edition is certainly the most inexpensive on the market. True, it is "no frills" Bach--without the help of fingerings and phrasing--but I found the edition very useful. For instance, the Alfred edition takes up six pages for the Fugue in C# Maj, Book I, whereas this Dover edition only takes two. I found this very useful when playing from this edition because page turns are impossible with Bach!!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A must for any piano library, but I prefer the Urtext
Review: This is a fantastic set for the price; if you DON'T have the Well-Tempered Clavier, you are missing a wealth of piano music that has just about every Baroque technique buried in some exceptionally lovely music.

I prefer the German-published Urtext Henle Editions, but they are pricey. If you are a casual player of Bach, or if you are assembling an essential library of piano literature, this edition is just fine, however.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Bargain at the price
Review: This is the text to get if you're studying Bach's preludes and fugues. As both a pianist and an organist, this is a book i can take from one instrument to the other. It has a no-nonsense approach and gives you just what you need to play. I had used another text of the Well Tempered Clavier and prefer this one above it. At this price, it should be a must in any pianist's or organist's library.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Bach's WTC ranks only 4-1/2 stars?
Review: When I saw that The Well-Tempered Clavier had only received four and half stars, I asked myself "if one of the supreme masterworks of one of the greatest composers of all times only gets four and a half stars, what the heck gets five stars?"

I love this music, and I like the Dover edition. It's true, it's not quite as legible as the Henle Urtext edition (what is?), but it's about as good a version of the score, there are fewer page turns, and, since it's a fraction of the price of the Henle edition, you can afford to buy two copies, one for writing in, and one for when you want to look at a clean score.

Amazon's current price comes out to less than five cents a page. You can't photocopy it for less!

I've bought several copies over the years, so that I could give them away to people I thought would enjoy them.

No single work of music, by any composer, has brought me as much enjoyment. I'm buying another copy today so that I can have one in my office and one at home.

I'll stop raving now ...


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