essay for this album, the musico
logist and pianist Raymond Erickson
remarks that the 15 two-part
Inventions and the 15 three-part
Sinfonias played an important role in
Bach’s teaching.
These pieces, although today mainly
associated with basic piano training,
are not at all easy and in
fact are sophisticated, small-scale
masterpieces. ‘They were not composed
simply to provide technical
training in keyboard playing but, perhaps
more important, to teach keyboard
players how to compose.’
In 1720 Bach’s oldest son Wilhelm
Friedemann (1710-84) was already
of an age appropriate for introducing
him into the family trade of musician.
So Bach started for him a music
notebook: a Clavierbüchlein which
included these Inventions and Sinfonias.
Bach revised them shortly before
moving to Leipzig in the spring of
1720, to take up his new post as
Thomaskantor, and copied them out
with a preface.
In learning and playing these works,
Bach affirmed, a diligent student
would be taught ‘a clear manner for
playing not only in two voices but
also in three obbligato parts and,
furthermore, not only how to invent
good musical ideas [inventiones] but
also how to develop these well.
And above all, how to achieve a
cantabile manner of playing, and
additionally to obtain a strong
foretaste of Composition.’
So it is that the Inventions and
Sinfonias have given much
pleasure to both performers and
listeners throughout the subsequent
two centuries. Brief as they are, each
one of these 30 works elegantly
outlines a distinct and often playful
world of its own.
They reward intensive listening both
on their own and in sequence. And
Yuan Sheng’s performances draw
on all the coloristic possibilities and
varieties of articulation available on
the modern piano, without seeking
to exceed the bounds of style which
the works themselves inhabit.