HELEN 7/11: For the umpteenth time, I had no memory of ever having played today’s Prelude and Fugue. Most of Bach’s P&F’s stick in my memory and become part of my DNA. Then there is F major from WTCI. I wrote a particularly acerbic post in 2018 about this prelude, comparing it to Hanon (wow). That’s not the thought I had today, although I chuckled at not remembering the piece. I believe that playing through these series this year has helped my sight reading considerably, and I was able to play it much faster, for a clearer view, today. Then I really enjoyed the fugue. I laughed out loud at the sequences around m. 56, just enjoying them. I’m thrilled with a little joy from (for me) an unheralded Prelude and Fugue.
Some of you may recall that I love Daniel Barenboim’s “reading” of the two books of the Well Tempered Clavier. I read today from his thoughtful book “Everything is Connected” regarding fugal subjects: “One cannot know how long it will be or how far it will stray from its starting point. This uncertainty is resolved only with the entrance of the second statement of the same subject. The subject can therefore only be perceived in its entirety once the second entrance of this subject has already begun.” I was so relieved to see someone else define subjects this way. I’ve always thought it was me, that there was something about the first statement that I should understand, and that it was a crutch to look at the second iteration. What a relief than a polymath like Barenboim determines subjects this way, too.
GRACE 7/11: I’m up through #6! Love #6, I should learn it… That fugue subject is really something, and I’m absolutely spoiled by having heard Gould play it so many times when I was growing up (read: listening to the WTC played by Gould every night as a child when I went to sleep).
I second your remark about my reading being smoother than last year. And, I also seem to prefer playing the fugues to the preludes now! Probably because my reading is stronger.
I absolutely feel the same way about feeling like the first iteration isn’t done till the second begins. That’s always been part of how I’ve organized fugues in my brain.