Svetlana Belsky on Bach’s Little Preludes, and why you should stop looking for the melody
The Busoni scholar on harmony, phrasing, ornaments and why Bach's teaching pieces are meant to entertain.
Svetlana Belsky is a Steinway Artist, winner of the 2019 American Prize in piano, and an authority on Ferruccio Busoni whose annotated translation of Busoni as Pianist was published by the University of Rochester Press. She performs, teaches and lectures widely, including talks on teaching Bach’s Little Preludes, Inventions and French Suites.
Here are fourteen of her best tips, from her Piano Star Masterclass on Bach’s Little Preludes on Piano League.
1. Stop looking for the melody
All of us Romantic pianists, we always look for melody and accompaniment everywhere, and that’s just not the Baroque style. We have to give up an idea of melody altogether, because the most important element of the Baroque style is harmony. Harmony is the king, the queen, the entire court.
Svetlana Belsky
2. Assume the phrase moves toward the strong beat
In Bach, you should always start with the assumption that your phrase is in fact iambic, because most of them are. Unfortunately, the way we write music is we connect things with beams inside a measure, but it’s very confusing to a student.
Svetlana Belsky
3. Treat the missing dynamics as freedom
The fact that Bach does not put dynamics is a joy, not only an impediment. Freedom is great, and a student can make up their own mind.
Svetlana Belsky
4. Adapt the difficulty to yourself
That’s another thing Busoni was very good at. He used to say that it doesn’t make sense to adapt yourself to the difficulty. What it makes sense to do is to adapt the difficulty to yourself. And if you have to take it with the other hand, or you have to do trick pedaling, why not? It is only the final effect that counts.
Svetlana Belsky
5. Any finger is fine if the phrase is beautiful
You can use your big toe, you can use your nose, I don’t care. I just want the phrase to come out beautiful.
Svetlana Belsky
6. Don’t start beginners on an urtext
I think it’s very important to not teach, especially these beginner pieces, from an urtext edition. Those are for study. It doesn’t really help a student to be met with this blank page, especially one filled with symbols that they don’t understand for ornaments.
Svetlana Belsky
7. Ornaments are not a mystery
Ornaments are not a mystery. Bach and other composers of the period left all of these ornamentation charts, and all the good editions of the preludes will have a chart with explanations in English, in easy to read characters, so that they’re not at all frightening.
Svetlana Belsky
8. The Little Preludes are not just a warm-up for the inventions
Some of them are very difficult and can be used at the same time as, let’s say, sinfonias, and some are so difficult technically and emotionally, and require maturity.
Svetlana Belsky
9. Look for the jokes Bach hid
What I love to do in my inventions is analyze them to within an inch of their lives. In almost every one of them, there’s either a mathematical joke or something about the way he uses different parts of the subject to create, again, either a joke or some kind of a point. Sometimes it’s even a theological point.
Svetlana Belsky
10. Nothing should stay level
Really, nothing in music should stay completely level.
Svetlana Belsky
11. Exaggerate both sides of a contrast
If we have any kind of opposing or contrasting elements right next to each other, let’s say triplets and a dotted rhythm, they work best if you exaggerate both.
Svetlana Belsky
12. Give a melody words
What great teachers have suggested throughout the ages is, when you have a melody that you have trouble finding shape for, to give it words, to give a text. Something secret, something very private, that if you were to tell me, you’d have to kill me kind of private, but something that would be very meaningful to you.
Svetlana Belsky
13. Try the obvious things
Just try the obvious things. Make it softer, louder, make it later, make it earlier, make it last longer. All these things are good options. Just find one you like. There’s no prescription for this. It’s just a question of having fun.
Svetlana Belsky
14. Let Bach entertain you
I feel like Papa Bach is sitting right here and going, did you notice? I just did something really cool. And that’s the attitude with which we have to approach, I think, at least all this pedagogical music that he specifically wrote to educate. As he says in the preface, for the edification and entertainment of musical youth. So let’s be entertained.
Svetlana Belsky
Quotes are lightly edited for length and clarity. They come from Svetlana Belsky’s 2020 Piano Star Masterclass on Bach’s Little Preludes. You can watch the full masterclass on the Piano League YouTube channel.
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