Old personal recordings: Bach's Prelude and Fugue in Bb minor (WTC, Book 1)

This is probably the most controversial playing I've ever done. I've put a playlist together to hear a variety of "standard" ways of playing this piece. 

I started off playing it this way. As I grew familiar with this piece I started to question the tempo. I encountered the same kind of problem that I elaborated on in my post about the Moonlight Sonata: namely that the slow tempo we are so used to hearing does not line up with the beat indicated in the meter. 

Here in the Bach, if you were to count the beat, you're likely going to end up tapping along with the eighth note pulse, when the piece is notated in 4/4. 

And so as I adjusted my performance to align to a quarter-note pulse, the piece changed from the brooding, introspective piece to a very angry, agitated one. The piece drives forward, barely relenting, until you reach the climactic diminished 7th chord right around 0:58. Then the picardy third that follows isn't so much a ray of sunshine as it is a sarcastic "well, whatever", still angry.

I think it fits the piece really well. My teacher wanted certain harmonic tensions and resolutions in place but he was willing to go along with it. I played it this way in a couple competitions, as well as for other teachers in studio classes, lessons, and a few commented on it, a few didn't. Anyone who was very familiar with the piece clearly noticed the difference. If I encountered any resistance, I maintained that it wasn't really 'faster', my performance, it was just in the proper meter. Tap along to the quarter note, and it isn't a speedy beat!

This 5-voice fugue was quite difficult to learn, but I'm rather happy with how it sounds. It sounds very busy, but there's quite a lot of clarity in this performance. This performance would come from October of 2010.