Piano Video Lesson: Did Bach Play the Piano?

Robert Ester here at LivingPianos.com, your online piano store, with a question. Did Bach play the piano? Now we all know Bach is one of the greatest musicians of all time.

And you also are probably familiar with tons of his keyboard work. So you wonder, he must have played the piano, but then you wonder, wait a second, Bach was born in 1685. I mean, would he ever have even encountered a piano? He lived in Germany and didn't travel very much. So interestingly, Bach never wrote a single piece for the piano. Yet you hear his music all the time on the piano.

In fact, all his keyboard music was written simply for clavier, keyboard. He didn't specify which one, with the exception of his organ music, which of course, because of the pedals, was written specifically for the pipe organ, which was a fully developed instrument in Bach's time. And there's some glorious music of his.

But keyboard, no, he did not specify what keyboard.

It is told that his favorite keyboard was the clavichord, the clavichord, very expressive keyboard, but such a quiet instrument that it was not a performance instrument, which is why the harpsichord was really the most popular performance instrument at the time. Undoubtedly, that's what was played in the Brandenburg concertos and two -part inventions and countless other keyboard works.

But what about the piano? You know, after all, Cristofori in Italy came up with the first instrument that was coined the piano, the forte piano, which was basically was a harpsichord builder who built a harpsichord that could play loud and soft, cimbalo, forte piano, forte piano.

Well, Bach did get a chance to play a type of piano similar to Cristofori's by Gottfried Silbermann.

And he had kind of mixed feelings about the instrument. Now, you've got to remember, the early forte piano was a very primitive instrument. It wasn't until later into the 1700s that the instrument developed further. And, you know, Mozart, of course, embraced the piano, wrote lots for it, as well as many other composers. But the earliest forte pianos, he wasn't really blown away with the sound, particularly in the upper register, although he did see potential and was interested in it. Now, if Bach could play this, oh my gosh, there's no doubt in my mind he would have loved the modern piano or even the piano that evolved, you know, a hundred years later would have been thrilling for him.

But he never really got a chance to play a great piano. The earliest pianos he played he saw some potential, but wasn't really thrilled with them. I think he loved playing his clavichord because of the nuance of expression and the tone he could get out of it. So that's the story about Bach. Even though all this great piano music we all play of Bach, you know, the Italian concerto.

You know, there's so much music, well, I don't know if you picked that, and there's like a zillion pieces, you know, from the Two -part Avengers.

The fifth French scene.

The chromatic fantasy and the fugue, something like that. Anyway, there's such a range of keyboard music that works phenomenally well with the piano. And like I say, I stand by this. If Bach played the modern piano, he would have loved to have heard his music on the piano. But sadly, he only played a very primitive forte piano, had mixed reviews. That's the long and short of it.

Any questions you have for me, leave them here at LivingPianos.com. We are your online piano store. Thanks again for joining me, Robert Estrin.

Find the original source of this video at this link: https://livingpianos.com/did-bach-play-the-piano/

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