Playing Bach on the Keyboard

The author shares accounts of the musical styles Bach employed and the instruments he knew. In direct and pragmatic terms, he clarifies the importance of notational and style details as guides to the composer’s intentions, particularly emphasizing changes in notational norms between Bach’s time and the present. Troeger offers core information on dynamics, articulation, tempo, rhythm, ornamentation, and accompaniment. He considers controversial issues as well, establishing the importance of the clavichord in Bach’s milieu and examining the link between baroque music and rhetoric - a dramatic relationship that can bring great vitality to performance.