Playing Bach on the Keyboard: A Practical Guide (Amadeus)

In this concise and accessible volume, a noted keyboard artist and Bach specialist takes a fresh look at the performance of J. S. Bachs keyboard music. Addressing the nonspecialist player, Richard Troeger presents a wide range of historical information and discusses its musical applications. The author shares accounts of the musical styles Bach employed and the instruments he knew. In direct and pragmatic terms, he clarifies the importance of notational and style details as guides to the composers intentions, particularly emphasizing changes in notational norms between Bachs time and the present. Troeger offers core information on dynamics, articulation, tempo, rhythm, ornamentation and accompaniment. He considers controversial issues as well, establishing the importance of the clavichord in Bachs milieu and examining the link between baroque music and rhetoric – a dramatic relationship that can bring great vitality to performance.