Abstract: Methodological message on the topic “Work on polyphony in the junior classes of music schools.
Working on polyphony
1. Introduction.
2. Goals and objectives of studying polyphony.
3. Types of polyphony.
4. Stages of working on polyphony.
5. Keyboard works by J. S. Bach.
6. Editions of the keyboard works of J. S. Bach.
7. About dynamics, articulation, tempo.
8. Pedalization in the works of J.S. Bach.
9. Conclusion.
“You can become a pianist without the skill
hear, understand and perform
polyphonic works, but
It’s impossible to become a musician.”
S.E. Feinberg
1. One of the typical features of piano literature is its polyphonic versatility. Throughout the history of its development, this literature has absorbed various properties of vocal, orchestral, organ, and harpsichord polyphony, which contributed to its diversity both in content and in stylistic and genre features.
Polyphonic music poses a number of particularly difficult tasks for the pianist. He must be able to play, as it were, one for many, must simultaneously lead several melodic lines, several voices, giving each of them his characteristic touch, dynamic plan, phrasing, and at the same time uniting these voices into a single process of unfolding the work as a whole.
2. The study of polyphony is the basis for the education of pianists and musicians.
Passing polyphony has the following goals:
1. Developing the ability to simultaneously conduct several recitation lines.
2. Education of polyphonic piano technique.
3. Education of musical taste.
4. Education of sound technology.
Performing polyphony requires a drawn-out sound, otherwise the line of each voice is broken, and sound gaps and pauses are formed in it. Therefore, in order to convey the linearity of polyphonic fabric, it is necessary to cultivate in the student a “vocal” and not a “percussive” attitude towards piano sound from childhood. The ability to produce long sounds, against the background of which, without drowning them out, short sounds move - important side piano sound technology in general, and polyphonic technology in particular.
3. The meaning of individual voices is different in works of subvocal, contrasting and imitative types of polyphony. The basis of the subvocal type of polyphony, which is primarily characteristic of polyphonic Russian songs and arrangements of Russian song melodies, is the development of the main voice. The remaining voices, which usually arise as its branches, have more or less independence.
In contrast to subvocal polyphony, contrasting polyphony is based on the development of such independent lines, for which the common origin from one melodic source is no longer a characteristic and defining feature.
In practice, students become familiar with contrasting polyphony mainly through the figurative works of J. S. Bach (A. M. Bach's Music Book, some small preludes, suites).
Imitative polyphony is based on the sequential performance in different voices of either the same melodic line (canon) or one melodic passage - theme. Despite the fact that in imitative polyphony as a whole all voices are equal, in different constructions individual voices play different roles. In a fugue and its varieties (fugetta, invention), the leading role usually belongs to the voice performing the theme.
4. When working on polyphony, it is important to ensure that the student hears a combination of voices. After carefully studying the melodic line of each voice, it is useful to learn them in pairs.
With this work, the student should already strive for an artistic concept. It is very useful to use figurative comparisons, comparisons with the timbres of various instruments and human voices.
In the process of analyzing a polyphonic work, it should be emphasized:
a) the importance of careful analysis of fingering;
b) strict adherence to the fingering recognized by the teacher as correct;
c) understanding the principles of fingering placement.
The problem of fingering arises with particular severity in polyphonic music when two or more voices are performed in the part of one hand. Constructions that require a lot of legato, when you have to resort to complex techniques, silent substitution of fingers, shifting, sliding, are of great difficulty.
In 3-voice polyphony, the student is faced with a new task that is directly related to fingering - with the distribution of the middle voice between the parts of the right and left hands. The accuracy and smoothness of voice production often depends on the successful solution of this problem. It is important to work especially carefully on the places where the middle voice transitions from the part of the right hand to the part of the left and back, as well as simultaneously carrying out 2 voices with one hand.
The final goal of the work: finding the desired ensemble of voices, fine artistic finishing and special attention to the development of themes and changing their expressive meaning.
Work on the simplest forms of polyphonic presentation should begin in the first year of study.
The repertoire of the first two to three years of study may include polyphonic pieces by Russian and Western European composers.
5. Studying the easy keyboard works of J. S. Bach is an integral part of the work of a school pianist.
The pedagogical orientation of the clavier works obviously corresponded to the very way of musical life of Bach's time. The collections compiled for A.M.Bach, W.F.Bach, 15 two-part inventions and 15 symphonies are devoted to pedagogical purposes.
“A conscientious manual in which clavier lovers, especially those eager to learn, are shown a clear way of how to play cleanly not only with two voices, but with further improvement, correctly and well perform the three required voices, learning at the same time not only a good invention, but also a fringe development; the main thing is to achieve a melodious manner of playing and at the same time acquire a taste for composition” - these words, indicated by Bach on the title page of the inventions, clearly outline the high educational goals that Bach set for himself when creating them.
J. S. Bach, as was customary in his time, wrote almost nothing in the text of his works, except for the notes themselves. With the exception of isolated cases, it is impossible to find any tempo, dynamic, fingering, or any other indications in Bach's original texts.
6. Already in early XIX V. Prominent musicians and teachers understood the need to create performance editions of J. S. Bach’s works, with the goal of making it easier for a large mass of teachers and students to master the difficulties of classical polyphony.
Various editions of Bach's keyboard works were attempts to decipher the composer's artistic and technical intentions in more or less detail. However, not all editors sacredly observed the basic law of editorial work on essays: always proceed from the original, keeping intact everything that remains of the author, down to the smallest, even scattered and isolated comments.
A protest against the arbitrariness of editors, who often distort the author’s text, is famous phrase A.G. Rubinstein, who, when asked which edition he played by, exclaimed: “Who plays by Croll, who plays by Czerny, and I play by Bach!”
Of course, developing the ability to independently delve into the author’s text, to independently interpret it, is among the most distant and difficult to achieve pedagogical tasks.
Therefore, the editors' advice should be treated with great attention. After all, the editor is the first assistant in the work.
However, attention should not lead to unconditional compliance with the editor's instructions.
In case of disagreement, they can be changed.
This applies primarily to indications of dynamics, articulation, and tempo.
7. When taking into account the characteristic stylistic features of Bach's time, one should not forget about the diverse capabilities of the modern piano. It is necessary to preserve the stylistic features of ancient music in combination with the use of modern instruments, carried out by a pianist with great tact and a sense of artistic proportion.
When performing works by J. S. Bach, one must not forget about the rich possibilities of dynamic nuances, and also use the pedal.
8. The use of the right piano pedal is possible when performing Bach's keyboard works, but not as a colorful, coloristic means. The pedal can serve as a means of emphasizing this or that harmony, highlighting the rhythmic structure of a phrase more clearly; The pedal can help in cases where it is impossible to perform legato with just your fingers or to delay a distant bass in an organ transcription.
9. The music of J. S. Bach cannot be conveyed in a cold, dispassionate manner. Having lived hard life, Bach did not lose his cheerfulness, his full-blooded sense of being. In his creations, the composer reflected a rich inner world and a variety of life experiences.
Performing works by J. S. Bach develops inner hearing and polyphonic thinking.
The development of polyphonic thinking must be considered as part of musical education as a whole, the education of artistic taste.
MUNICIPAL EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION FOR ADDITIONAL CHILDREN'S EDUCATION
CHILDREN'S MUSIC SCHOOL
SHCHELKOVSKY MUNICIPAL DISTRICT
MOSCOW REGION
"Work on polyphony in the junior classes of children's music schools."
Teacher
Shchelkovo-2011
Work on polyphony at Children's Music School
Folk music, especially the music of the Russian people, is always imbued with the spirit of the ensemble, collectivity, and carries within itself the tradition of polyphony.
The melodic melodiousness of folk music is not monophonic in nature. She strives for collective intonation, to identify herself through the choir, through polyphony. Classical music - in opera, in symphony, in chamber forms - has always provided high examples of rich and diverse polyphony, which has its origins in folk tradition. Polyphony, as an effective force in music, could not help but attract the creative attention of composers of various directions throughout the history of music. Composers have never been indifferent to polyphony. Learning polyphony is the key to mastering the art of piano playing. After all piano music everything is polyphonic in a broad sense this word. To master the piano well, as Yuri Bogdanov said, you need to play etudes and works. Therefore, in the initial years of study at a children's music school, it is necessary to cultivate interest and love for music, and therefore for polyphonic music.
The best guide to the world of music for a child is a song. It is this that enables the teacher to interest the student in music. A first-grader willingly sings familiar songs, listens with interest and guesses different character plays that the teacher plays for him (funny, sad, dance, solemn, etc.) Along the way, the child should be told that sounds, like words, convey content and different feelings. In the first lesson, I usually play a “game” with a student to determine the nature of music. First, I play him various pieces, where he must determine the mood conveyed by the composer, then I ask the student to determine the nature of the music by the title or by the picture, which clearly conveys the mood. Children especially like the plays from the collection “Getting to Know Music” by Artobolevskaya. For example, the play “Where are you, Leka”, based on the picture, children tell a whole story about why the dog is sad. The picture accompanying the Minuet clearly conveys the era of that time, the costumes of those dancing at the ball. Based on children's stories, one can determine the child's horizons, his vocabulary, sociability, etc. This is how musical impressions gradually accumulate. Melodies of children's and folk songs in the lightest single-voice transcriptions for piano are the most intelligible educational material for beginners in terms of content. Careful selection of repertoire is of great importance in a student's musical success. Songs should be chosen simple but meaningful, characterized by bright intonation expressiveness, with a clearly defined climax. Thus, from the first steps, the focus of the student’s attention becomes a melody, which he sings expressively, and then just as expressively tries to “sing” on the piano. The expressive and melodious performance of single-voice melodic songs is subsequently transferred to the combination of two of the same melodies in light polyphonic pieces. The naturalness of this transition is the key to maintaining a keen interest in polyphony in the future.
The polyphonic repertoire for beginners consists of light polyphonic arrangements of subvocal folk songs, close and understandable to children in their content. The teacher talks about how these songs were performed among the people: the singer began the song, then the choir (“podvoloski”) picked it up, varying the same melody. For example, the song “Oh, you, winter - winter...”. It can be performed in a “choral” way, dividing the roles: the student plays the part of the lead singer, and the teacher on another piano “depicts” the choir, which picks up the melody of the lead singer. After two or three lessons, the student performs the “backing vocals” and is clearly convinced that they have no less independence than the melody of the lead singer.
The student’s active and interested attitude towards polyphonic music depends entirely on the teacher’s method of work and his ability to lead the student to an imaginative perception of the basic elements of polyphonic music
From the first grades of school, the student must become familiar with all types of polyphonic writing - subvocal, contrasting, imitative - and master the basic skills of performing two and then three voices in light polyphonic works of various types. But it is hardly advisable to introduce a first-grader to the term imitation. It is easier to explain this concept using examples that are accessible and close to the child. So in plays such as the children's song “On a Green Meadow...”, you can play the original tune an octave higher and figuratively explain to the student the imitation, that is, the repetition of a motive or melody in a different voice, like the familiar concept of ECHO. Playing in an ensemble will greatly enliven the perception of imitation: the student plays the melody, and its imitation (ECHO) is played by the teacher, then vice versa. Imitation is the main polyphonic way of developing a theme. This technique is especially useful in plays where imitation is accompanied by a melody in a different voice, as in piece No. 17 from the collection “Piano ABC”: it could be called “Cuckoos”, so much so that a comparison of imitation with the roll call of two cuckoos suggests itself. In this collection there are many etudes and plays built imitatively on themes of song and dance (studies No. 17, 31, 34, 35, 37). The best pedagogical material for cultivating polyphonic sound thinking of a pianist is the clavier heritage, and the first step towards understanding polyphony is the well-known collection called “The Music Book of Anna Magdalena Bach.” Small masterpieces included in " Music book", are mainly small dance pieces - polonaises, minuets, marches, distinguished by their extraordinary richness of melodies, rhythms, and moods. “Music notebook” is a kind of homemade music albums families. This included instrumental and vocal pieces of various types. These plays, both his own and those of others, are written in notebooks in the handwriting of Bach himself, sometimes his wife Anna Magdalena, and there are also pages written in the childish handwriting of one of Bach’s sons. The vocal works - arias and chorales included in the collection - were intended for performance in the home circle of Bach's family. The collection contains nine Minuets. At the time, the Minuet was widespread, alive, everything famous dance. It was danced both at home and at merry parties and during ceremonial palace ceremonies. Subsequently, the minuet became a fashionable aristocratic dance, which was enjoyed by prim courtiers in white powdered wigs with curls. A good illustration of the balls of that time in Artobolevskaya’s collection “First Encounter with Music”. Children should pay attention to the costumes of men and women, in to a greater extent that determined the style of dancing: for women, creoles, immensely wide, requiring smooth movements; for men, legs covered in stockings in elegant high-heeled shoes, with beautiful garters - bows at the knees. The Minuet was danced with great solemnity. The music reflected in its melodic turns the smoothness and importance of bows, curtsies and curtsies. After listening to a Minuet performed by a teacher, the student determines its character, that it resembles more a song or a dance, therefore the character of the performance should be soft, smooth, melodious, in a calm, even movement. Then it is necessary to draw the student’s attention to the difference between the melody of the upper and lower voices, their independence and independence from each other, as if they were sung by two singers: the first high female voice is a soprano, and the second low male voice is a bass, or two voices are performed by two different tool. I. Braudo gave great importance ability to play piano. “The first concern of the leader,” he wrote, “will be to teach the student to extract from the piano a certain, necessary in this case sonority.
Big educational value for the ear it has the performance of two voices in different instrumentation. For this purpose, it is useful to play the first polyphonic samples being studied with the student so that he can actually hear the combination of two voices. One voice is performed by the teacher, the other voice by the student. If there are two instruments, it is useful to play both voices simultaneously on two instruments - this gives each melodic line greater relief. It is also useful to separate the voices through the octave (upper – flute, lower – violin). The upper voice in place - the lower one down an octave, the lower one in place - the upper one up an octave. The maximum possible separation of voices is two octaves. If two voices pass simultaneously in the part of a hand, we can recommend that the student first play these constructions with both hands: in this way it will be easier for him to achieve the desired sonority and the purpose of the work will become clearer. It is necessary to ensure that the student is able to play each voice from beginning to end completely completely and expressively. The importance of working on students' voices is often underestimated; it is carried out formally and is not brought to that degree of perfection when the student can actually perform each voice as an independent melodic line. After carefully studying individual voices, it is useful to practice them in pairs. To ensure the necessary auditory control, when performing voices, it is advisable to play them at first not from beginning to end, but in separate small formations, returning again to the most difficult places and playing them several times. A very effective way of working for advanced students is to sing one of the voices while the others are played on the piano. It is also useful to sing polyphonic works in chorus. This contributes to the development of polyphonic hearing and familiarize students with polyphony. Sometimes it is useful to practice two voices, playing alternately in each of them only those segments that should prevail in their semantic meaning in a two-voice performance. If you have three or more voices, it is useful to work on each pair of voices. So, for example, with a three-voice presentation, it is useful to separately teach the upper and middle voices, upper and lower, lower and middle. It is very useful to play all the voices, focusing your attention on one of them. Remove the middle voices (they are like filling), and lead the extreme ones, they are like a skeleton.
The upper voice is melodic, the lower is harmonic. Use timbre fantasies: lead one voice on the forte, removing the rest on the piano. When the middle voice stands out, it is difficult, but very rewarding to do. To hear the lower voice, change the voices crosswise, transfer the lower voice to the upper one, and the upper one to the lower one, this is difficult, but effective. Be sure to hear long notes and delayed ones. Hearing harmony formed by several voices - (vertical). Hear horizontal. Play slowly and stop on the downbeat.
Polyphony is characterized by polydynamics and to reproduce it clearly, one should, first of all, avoid dynamic exaggerations and should not deviate from the intended instrumentation until the end of the piece. A sense of proportion in relation to all dynamic changes in any work is a quality without which it is impossible to convey its music stylistically correctly. With Bach there is not an outpouring of emotional feelings, but a concentration of feelings - self-restraint, turning inward. Everything that is written in the text should sound: clarity, accuracy, melodiousness in sound. What is progressive in the text is played legato, a jump is the removal of the hand. Bach has equal beats, the strong beat does not stand out. He sets the phrasing in size. The main thing is not to break the line, and the beginning of a topic is not as important as its end. Bach creates surround sound, harmonic fullness. Whenever working on Bach's keyboard works, one should be aware of the following basic fact. In the manuscripts of Bach's keyboard works there are almost no performance instructions. Then this was accepted, because there were no musicians - performers in our understanding of the word; on the other hand, Bach meant almost exclusively the performance of his works by his sons and students who were well acquainted with his principles. As for dynamics, it is known that Bach used only three notations in his works, namely: forte, piano and, in rare cases, pianissimo. Bach did not use the expressions crescendo, dim, mp, ff, forks indicating increased and decreased sonority, and finally, accent marks. The use of tempo notations in Bach's texts is equally limited. And where they exist, they cannot be taken in their modern meaning. His ADAGIO GRAUE tempos are not slow like ours, and his PRESTO is not as fast as ours. There is an opinion that the better you play Bach, the slower you can play it; the worse you play, the faster you need to take the tempo. The liveliness in Bach's works is based not on tempo, but on phrasing and emphasis. Of the many tasks that stand in the way of studying polyphony, the main one remains work on melodiousness, intonation expressiveness and independence of each voice separately.
2 – in different, almost nowhere matching phrasing (for example, in bars
3 – in the mismatch of strokes (legato and non-legato).
4 – in a mismatch of climaxes (for example, in the fifth – sixth bars, the melody of the upper voice rises and leads to the top, and the lower voice moves down and rises to the top only in the seventh bar)
6 – in a discrepancy in dynamic development (for example, in the fourth measure of the second part, the sonority of the lower voice increases, and the upper one decreases).
The majority of keyboard works belong to works with unmarked articulation. Those easy keyboard works that make up the main Bach repertoire of a schoolchild are completely devoid of any performance instructions.
Of the 30 inventions and symphonies, only the F minor symphony contains two leagues. From all of the above, it is clear that single performance instructions found in Bach’s manuscripts can serve as valuable research material concerning the performance of ancient music.
We know that he himself intended the easy keyboard pieces not for concerts, but for studying and playing music at home. Therefore, the real tempo for an invention, a small prelude, a minuet, a march is considered at the moment to be the tempo that is most useful for the student. What pace is most useful at the moment. The tempo at which the piece is best performed by the student. Study tempo has as its main goal not preparation for a fast tempo, but preparation for understanding music. The fast tempo makes it impossible to listen to the music.
What the student gains by working at a slow tempo—an understanding of music—is the most essential. You should imagine the tempo as if they were being sung, sing them out loud or mentally to yourself. This way is the easiest way to establish a pace that is free from haste and immobility. But you should also make sure that the slow tempo does not turn into a series of slow, monotonous movements that have no connection with the music itself.
MATERIALS USED:
1. A. Alekseev “Methods of teaching piano playing.”
2. G. Neuhaus “On the art of piano playing”
3. I. Braudo “On the study of Bach’s keyboard works in a music school.”
4. Materials of advanced training courses.
5. N. Kalinina “Bach’s keyboard music in piano class».
MOUDOD Children's music school of the Shchelkovsky municipal district of the Moscow region
Materials
for certification
Teacher by class
piano
Kuznetsova
Nadezhda Mikhailovna
Municipal government educational institution additional education children "Mikhailovskaya Children's Art School"
Zheleznogorsk district, Kursk region.
METHODOLOGICAL REPORT
“Working on polyphony in class
piano"
Prepared by:
Piano teacher
Goncharova L.M.
lyric Mikhailovka
2014
Working on polyphonic works is integral part piano performance training. After all, piano music is all polyphonic in the broad sense of the word.
Education of polyphonic thinking, polyphonic hearing, that is, the ability to discretely, differentiatedly perceive (hear) and reproduce on an instrument several sound lines that combine with each other in the simultaneous development - one of the most important and most complex sections of musical education.
Modern piano pedagogy places great confidence in the musical intelligence of children.
Based on the experience of B. Bartok, K. Orff, the teacher opens up an interesting and complex world polyphonic music from the first year of study at music school. The polyphonic repertoire for beginners consists of light polyphonic arrangements of subvocal folk songs, close and understandable to children in their content.
The teacher talks about how these songs were performed among the people: the singer began the song, then the choir ("podvoloski") picked it up, varying the same melody.
Taking, for example, Russian folk song"Motherland" from the collection "For Young Pianists" edited by V. Shulgina, the teacher invites the student to perform it in a "choral" way, dividing the roles: the student plays the learned part of the lead singer in the lesson, and the teacher, preferably on another instrument, as this will give each melodic the lines are more prominent, “depicting” the choir, which picks up the melody of the chorus. After two or three lessons, the student performs the “backing vocals” and is clearly convinced that they are no less independent than the melody of the lead singer. When working on individual voices, it is necessary to achieve expressive and melodious performance by the student. I would like to draw attention to this all the more because the importance of working on students’ voices is often underestimated; it is carried out formally and is not brought to that degree of perfection when the student can actually perform each voice separately as a melodic line. It is very useful to learn each voice by heart.
By playing both parts alternately with a teacher in an ensemble, the student not only clearly feels independent life each of them, but also hears the entire piece in its entirety in a simultaneous combination of both voices, which greatly facilitates the most difficult stage of the work - the transfer of both parts into the hands of the student.
In order to make a child’s understanding of polyphony more accessible, it is useful to resort to figurative analogies and use program essays in which each voice has its own figurative characteristic. For example, Sorokin’s arrangement of the song “Katenka the Cheerful,” which he called “Shepherds Playing the Pipe.” The two-voice subvocal polyphony in this piece becomes especially accessible to the student thanks to the program title. The child easily imagines two levels of sonority here: like a game of an adult shepherd and a little shepherd boy playing along on a small pipe.
This task usually captivates the student and the work progresses quickly..
This method of mastering polyphonic pieces significantly increases interest in them.,
and most importantly, it awakens in the student’s mind a living, imaginative perception of voices. This is the basis of an emotional and meaningful attitude towards voice guidance. In a similar way a number of other plays of the subvocal type are being learned. They can be found in many collections for beginners, for example: “I want to become a musician”, “The path to playing music”, “Pianist - Dreamer”, “School of Piano Playing” edited by A. Nikolaev, “Collection of Piano Pieces” edited by Lyakhovitskaya , "Young pianist"
V. Shulgina.
Huge benefit in developing basic polyphonic performance skills during primary education can bring Elena Fabianovna Gnesina’s collections “Piano ABC”, “Small Etudes for Beginners”, “Preparatory
exercises".
In the collections of Shulgina “For Young Pianists”, Barenboim “The Path to Playing Music”, Turgeneva “The Dreaming Pianist”" creative tasks are given for subvocal plays, for example: select the bottom voice to the end and determine the tonality; play one voice and sing the other; add a second voice to the melody and record an accompanying voice; compose a continuation of the upper voice and so on.
Composition is extremely useful as one of the types of creative music-making for children. It activates uswpassion, imagination, feelings. Finally, it significantly increases interest in the works being studied.
The student’s active and interested attitude towards polyphonic music depends entirely on the teacher’s method of work, on his ability to lead the student to an imaginative perception of the basic elements of polyphonic music and its inherent techniques, such as imitation.
In the Russian folk songs “I Walk with the Loach” or “The Woodcutter” from V. Shulgina’s collection “For Young Pianists”" , where the original melody is repeated an octave lower, the imitation can be figuratively explained by comparison with such a familiar and interesting phenomenon for children as an echo. The child will be happy to answer the teacher’s questions: how many voices are there in the song?? What voice sounds like an echo? And he will arrange (himself) the dynamics (fand p), using the "echo" technique. Playing in an ensemble will greatly enliven the perception of imitation: the student plays the melody, and its imitation (“echo”) is played by the teacher, and vice versa.
It is very important to accustom the child to clarity from the first steps of mastering polyphony.
alternate entry of votes, clarity of their conduct and ending. It is necessary to achieve a contrasting dynamic embodiment and a different timbre for each voice in each lesson.
From the plays of B. Bartok and other modern authors, children comprehend the originality
musical language modern composers. Based on the example of Bartok's play
“The Opposite Movement” shows how important the game of polyphony is for the education and development of a student’s ear, especially when it comes to the perception and performance of works of modern music. Here the melody of each voice separately sounds natural. But when initially playing a piece with both hands at once, the student may be unpleasantly surprised by the dissonances and lists of F - F-sharp, C - C-sharp that arise during the opposite movement. If he first properly masters each voice separately, then their simultaneous sound will be perceived by him as logical and natural.
Often, in modern music There is a complication of polyphony with polytonality (voices in different keys). Of course, such a complication must have some justification. For example, in the fairy tale play “The Bear” by I. Stravinsky, the melody is a five-note diatonic chant based on the lower sound C, the accompaniment is a repeated alternation of the sounds D flat and A flat. Such “alien” accompaniment should resemble the creaking of an “alien” wooden leg, to the beat of which the bear sings his song. B. Bartok's plays "Imitation" and "Imitation in Reflection" introduce children to direct and mirror imitation.
Following the mastery of simple imitation (repetition of the motive in a different voice), work begins on plays of a canonical type, built on a string imitation, which begins before the end of the imitated melody. In plays of this kind, not just one phrase or motive is imitated, but all phrases or motives until the end of the work. As let's take an example Yu. Litovko's play "The Shepherd" (canon) from V. Shulgina's collection "For Young Pianists". This play is subtextual with words. To overcome a new polyphonic difficulty, the following method of working, consisting of three stages, is useful. First, the play is rewritten and learned in simple imitation. Under the first phrase of the song, pauses are placed in the lower voice, and when imitating it in the second voice, pauses are written in the soprano.
The second phrase is rewritten in the same way, and so on. In such a simplified “arrangement,” the piece is played for two or three lessons, then the “arrangement” becomes somewhat more complicated: the phrases are rewritten in stretted imitation, with pauses indicated in the 5th measure in the soprano.
The second phrase is learned in the same way, and so on. The ensemble method of work should become the leading method at this time. Its importance increases even more at the last, third stage of the work, when the piece is played by the teacher and student in the ensemble as it was written by the composer. And only after that both voices are transferred into the hands of the student.
It should be noted that the process of rewriting polyphonic works itself is very useful. This was pointed out by such outstanding teachers aswof his time, like Valeria Vladimirovna Listova, Nina Petrovna Kalinina, Yakov Isaakovich Milshtein. The student quickly gets used to the polyphonic texture, understands it better, and more clearly understands the melody of each voice and their vertical relationship. When copying, he sees and grasps with his inner hearing such important feature polyphony, as a discrepancy in time of identical motives.
The effectiveness of such exercises is enhanced if they are then played by ear, using different sounds, in different registers (together with the teacher). As a result of such work, the student clearly understands the canonical structure of the play, the introduction of the imitation, its relationship with the phrase that is being imitated, and the connection of the end of the imitation with the new phrase.
Since string imitation in the polyphony of J. S. Bach is a very important means of development, a teacher who cares about the prospects for a student’s further polyphonic education should focus on it.
Further, the study of polyphonic plays of the Baroque era, among which the works of J. S. Bach occupy the first place, becomes especially important. During this era, the rhetorical foundations of the musical language were formed - musical - rhetorical figures associated with certain semantic symbolism (figures of a sigh, exclamation, question, silence, amplification, various forms of movement and musical structure). Familiarity with the musical language of the Baroque era serves as the basis for the accumulation of an intonation vocabulary of a young musician and helps him understand the musical language of subsequent eras.
The best pedagogical material for the education of polyphonic sound iswThe pianist’s career is the keyboard heritage of J. S. Bach, and the first step on the path to the “polyphonic Parnassus” iswIroko famous collection called "The Notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach". Little oneswedevry, enteredwie in the "Note Book", are mainly small dance pieces - polonaises, minuets and marches, distinguished by their extraordinary richness of melodies, rhythms, and moods. In my opinion, it is best to introduce the student to the collection itself, i.e., the “Note Book,” and not to individual pieces scattered across different collections. It is very useful to tell your child that the two “Music Notebooks of Anna Magdalena Bach” are peculiar home music albums of the family of J. S. Bach. This included instrumental and vocal pieces of various types. These plays, both his own and those of others, are written in notebooks by the hand of J. S. Bach himself, sometimes by his wife Anna Magdalena Bach, and there are also pages written in the childish handwriting of one of Bach’s sons.
The vocal works - arias and chorales included in the collection - were intended for performance in the home circle of Bach's family.
I usually begin introducing students to the Music Book with Minuetd-
moll. The student will be interested to know that the collection includes nine Minuets. During the time of J. S. Bach, the “Minuet” was a widespread, lively, well-known dance. It was danced both at home and at merry parties and during ceremonial palace ceremonies. In the distantwThe minuet became a fashionable aristocratic dance, which was enjoyed by prim courtiers in white powdered wigs with curls. It is necessary to show illustrations of balls of that time, to draw children's attention to the costumes of men and women, which largely determined the style of dancing (women had crinolines, immensely wide, requiring smooth movements, men had legs covered in stockings, in elegant high-heeled shoes, with beautiful garters , - bows at the knees). We danced a minuet with
with great solemnity. His music reflected in its melodic turns the smoothness and importance of bows, low ceremonial curtsies and curtsies.
I heardwIn the “Minuet” performed by the teacher, the student determines its character: with its melody and melodiousness, it is more reminiscent of a song than a dance, therefore the character of the performance should be soft, smooth, melodious, in a calm and even movement. Then the teacher draws the student’s attention to the difference between the melody of the upper and lower voices, their independence and independence from each other, as if they were being sung by two singers: we determine that the first, a high female voice, is a soprano, and the second, a low male voice, is a bass; or two voices performing two different instruments, which? It is imperative to involve the student in the discussion of this issue and awaken his creative imagination. I. Braudo attached great importance to the ability to instrument the piano. "The first concern of a leader, - he wrote, - he will teach the student to extract from the piano a certain sonority that is necessary in this case. I would call this skill... the ability to logically instrument the piano." "The performance of two voices in different instrumentation has great educational value for the ear." This difference is sometimes convenient to make clear to the student through figurative comparisons. For example, the solemn, festive "Little Prelude of St.dur"It is natural to compare it with a short overture for an orchestra, in which trumpets and timpani take part. Thoughtful “Little Prelude e-moll"naturally compare with a play for a small chamber ensemble, in which the melody of the solo oboe is accompanied string instruments. The very understanding ofschits character of sonority necessary for of this work, will help the student develop the demandingness of his hearing, will help direct this demandingness to the waspschcreating the required sound."
In Minuetd- mollthe melodious, expressive sound of the first voice resembles the singing of a violin. And the timbre and register of the bass voice approaches the sound of a cello. Then you need to analyze with your child, asking him leading questions, the form of the play (two-part) and its tonal plan: the first part begins ind - moll" e, and ends in parallelF- dur" e; the second part begins atF- dur" eand ends atd - moll" e; phrasing and associated articulation of each voice separately. In the first part, the lower voice consists of two sentences, clearly separated by cadence, and the first sentence of the upper voice breaks up into two push-pull phrases: the first phrase sounds more significant and persistent, the second is calmer, as if in response.
To clarify the question-response relationships, Braudo offers the following
pedagogical technique: the teacher and student are located at two pianos. The first two-beat is performed by the teacher, the student responds to this two-beat - the question - by performing the second two-beat - the answer. Then the roles can be changed: the student will “ask” questions, the teacher will answer. In this case, the performer asking questions can play his melody a little brighter, and the one answering - a little quieter, then try to play it the other way around, out loud.wtry and choose the best option. “It is important that at the same time we teach the student not so much to play a little louder and a little quieter - we teach him to “ask” and “answer” on the piano.
You can work on Minuet No. 4 in the same way.G-
dur, where "questions" and "answers" consist of four-bar phrases. Then the entire first voice of the Minuet is played by the student, expressively intoning the “questions” and “answers”; work on the expressiveness of strokes deepens (bars 2.5) - here the student can be helped by figurative comparisons. For example, in the second measure the melody “reproduces” an important, deep and significant bow, and in the fifth – lighter, more graceful bows, and so on. The teacher can ask the student to depict different bows in motion, based on the nature of the strokes. It is necessary to determine the climax of both parts - both in the first movement, and the main climax of the entire piece in the second movement almost merges with the final cadence - this is a distinctive feature of Bach's style, which the student should be aware of. The question of the interpretation of Bach's cadences occupied
such authoritative researchers of Bach's work as F. Busoni, A. Schweitzer, I. Braudo. They all come to the conclusion that Bach's cadences are characterized by significance and dynamic pathos. Very rarely does a Bach piece end withpiano; the same can be said about the cadences in the middle of the work.
Of the many tasks that stand in the way of studying polyphony, the main one remains work on melodiousness, intonation expressiveness and independence of each voice separately. Independence of voices is an indispensable feature of any polyphonic work. Therefore, it is so important to show the student, using the example of the Minuet, exactly how this independence is manifested: in the different nature of the sound of voices (instrumentation); in different, almost nowhere matching phrasing (for example, in bars1- 4 the upper voice contains two phrases, and the lower one consists of one sentence); in mismatched strokes (legatoand poplegato); in the mismatch of climaxes (for example, in the fifth - sixth bars, the melody of the upper voice rises and comes to the top, and the lower voice moves down and rises to the top only in the seventh bar); in different rhythms (the movement of the lower voice in quarter and half durations contrasts with the moving rhythmic pattern of the melody of the upper one, consisting almost entirely of eighth notes); in a discrepancy in dynamic development (for example, in measure four of the second part, the sonority of the lower voice increases, and the upper voice decreases).
Bach's polyphony is characterized by polydynamics, and to reproduce it clearly one should first of all avoid dynamic exaggerations and should not deviate from the intended instrumentation until the end of the piece. A sense of proportion in relation to all dynamic changes in any work by Bach is a quality without which it is impossible to convey his music stylistically correctly. Leewb through a deep analytical study of the basic patterns of Bach's style, one can comprehend the composer's performing intentions. All the efforts of the teacher should be directed towards this, starting with the “Notebook of Anna Magdalena Bach”.
Based on the material of other pieces from the "Notebook", the student learns new features of Bach's music, which he will encounter in the works varying degrees difficulties. For example, with the peculiarities of Bach's rhythm, which is characterized in most cases by the use of adjacent durations: eighths and quarters (all marches and minuets), sixteenths and eighths ("Bagpipes"). Another distinctive feature of Bach’s style, which was identified by I. Braudo and called the “eighth” technique, is the contrast in the articulation of adjacent durations: small durations are playedlegato, and larger ones - poplegatoorstaccato. However, this technique should be used based on the nature of the plays: melodious Minuetd- moll. Minuet No. 15c- moll, solemn Polonaise No. 19g- moll- an exception to the "rule of eight".
When performing vocal works by I.S. Bach (Aria No. 33f- moll. Aria No. 40F- Dur), as well as his chorale preludes (at a further stage of training), one must not lose sight of the fact that the fermata sign does not mean a temporary stop in these pieces, as in modern musical practice; this sign only indicated the end of the verse.
When working on Bach's polyphony, students often encounter melismas, the most important artistic expressive means musicXVII- XVIIIcenturies. If we take into account the differences in editorial recommendations both regarding the number of decorations and in their decoding, it becomes clear that the student will definitely need help and specific instructions from the teacher. The teacher must proceed from a sense of style performed works, own performing and teaching experience, as well as available methodological manuals. So, a teacher can recommend article L.AND. Roizman “On the execution of decorations (melismas) in the works of ancient composers”, which examines this issue in detail and provides instructions from I.S. Bach. You can turn to Adolf Beischlag’s major study “Ornamentation in Music”, and of course, get acquainted with Bach’s interpretation of the performance of melismas according to the table compiled by the composer himself in “Wilhelm Friedemann Bach’s Night Notebook”, covering the main typical examples. Three points are important here:
1. Bach recommends performing melismas due to the duration of the main sound (for
with some exceptions).
2. All melismas begin with the upper auxiliary sound (except for the crossed out mordent and a few exceptions, for example, if the sound on which the trill or uncrossed mordent is placed is already preceded by the nearestwy upper sound, then ukrawsinging is performed from the main sound).
3. Auxiliary sounds in melismas are performed on the steps of the diatonic scale, except in cases where the alteration sign is indicated by the composer - under the melisma sign or above it. So that our students do not treat melismas as an annoying hindrance in the play, we need to skillfully present this material to them, arouse interest and curiosity.
For example, learning Minuet No. 4G- dur, the student gets acquainted with the melody, not paying attention at first to the mordents written in the notes. Then he listens to the play performed by the teacher, first without decorations, then with decorations and compares. The guys, of course, prefer the performance with mordents. Let him look for himself, where and how they are indicated in the notes.
Having found icons (mordents) that are new to him, the student usually waits with interest for the teacher’s explanation, and the teacher tells him that these icons that decorate the melody represent abbreviationsscha special way of recording melodic turns, common in XVII - XVIII centuries. UkrainewThe expressions seem to connect, unify the melodic line, and enhance speech expressiveness. And if melismas are a melody, then they must be performed melodiously and expressively, in the character and tempo that are inherent in the given piece. To prevent melismas from being a “stumbling block,” you must first hear them “to yourself,” sing them, and only then play them, starting at a slow tempo and gradually bringing it to the desired tempo.
A new step in mastering polyphony is acquaintance with the collection "Little Preludes and Fugues", and from it many threads stretch to the "Inventions", "Symphonies" and "HTK". I want to emphasize that when studying Bach’s works, gradualness and consistency are very important. “You cannot go through fugues and symphonies unless you have thoroughly studied the inventions and small preludes,” warned I. Braudo.
These collections, in addition to their artistic merit, give the teacher the opportunity to deepen the student’s acquaintance with the characteristic features of Bach’s phrasing, articulation, dynamics, voicing, and to explain to him such important concepts as theme, opposition, hidden polyphony, imitation and others.
The student became acquainted with imitation in the first grade of music school. In middle school, his idea of imitation expands. He must understand it as a repetition of the theme - the main musical idea - in a different voice. Imitation is the main polyphonic way of developing a theme. Therefore, a thorough and comprehensive study of the topic, be it a Little Prelude. Invention, Symphony or Fugue, is the primary task in working on any polyphonic work of an imitative nature.
When starting to analyze a topic, the student independently or with the help of a teacher determines its boundaries. Then he must understand the figurative and intonational nature of the topic. The chosen expressive interpretation of the theme determines the interpretation of the entire work. That is why it is so necessary to grasp all the sound subtleties of the theme performance, starting from its first performance. While still studying pieces from Anna Magdalena Bach's Notebook, the student realized the motivic structure of Bach's melodies. Working, for example, on the theme in Little Prelude No. 2C-
dur(Part1)
, the student must clearly understand that it consists of three ascending motives (example 3). To clearly identify its structure, it is useful to first teach each motive separately, playing it from different sounds, achieving intonation expressiveness. When a theme, after careful elaboration of the motives, is played in its entirety, distinct intonation of each motive is required. To do this, it is useful to play the theme with caesuras between motives, doing on the last sound of each motivetenuto.
Using the example of the InventionC-
durThe student should be introduced to intermotive articulation, which is used to separate one motive from another using caesura.
The most obvious type of caesura is a pause indicated in the text.
In most cases, the ability to independently establish semantic caesuras is required, which the teacher must instill in the student. In the InventionC-
durthe theme, antiposition and new implementation of the theme in the first voice are separated by caesuras. Students easily cope with caesura when moving from a topic to a counter-addition, but from a counter-addition to a new implementation of the topic, the caesura is more difficult to perform. You should carefully work on taking the first sixteenth in the second measure more quietly and softly, as if on an exhalation, and imperceptibly and easily releasing your finger, immediately lean on the second sixteenth of the group (G), sing it deeply and significantly to show the beginning of the theme . Students, as a rule, make a serious mistake here by playing the sixteenth note before the caesurastaccato, and even with a rough, harsh sound, without listening to how it sounds. Braudo recommends playing the last note before the caesura
possibilitiestenuto.
It is necessary to introduce the student to various ways of indicating intermotivic caesura. It can be indicated by a pause, one or two vertical lines, the end of a league, a signstaccatoon the note before the caesura.
Speaking about intramotive articulation, the child should be taught to distinguish between the main types of motives:
1. Iambic motives that go from weak to strong tenses.
2. Trochaic motives, I enterschie on the strong beat and ending on the weak beat. An example of staccato iambic is the iambic motifs in bars four–five in Little Prelude No. 2C- dur. Because of the hard ending, it is called "masculine". It occurs constantly in Bach's music, because it corresponds to its courageous character. As a rule, iambic in Bach's works is pronounced dissected: the upbeat sound is staccato (or pop is playedlegato), and the reference one is executedtenuto. A feature of the articulation of the trochee (soft, feminine ending) is the connection of the strong tense with the weak one.
As an independent motif, trochees, due to their softness, are rarely found in Bach's music, usually being an integral part of a three-member motif formed from the fusion of two simple motives - iambic and trochee. The three-part motif thus combines two contrasting types of pronunciation - separateness and unity. One of characteristic properties Bach's themes is the iambic structure that predominates in them. Most often, the first time they are performed begins with a weak beat after a previous pause on a strong time. When studying Little Preludes No. 2, 4, 6, 7, 9,11
from the first notebook, Inventions No. 1, 2, 3, 5 and others.
Symphonies No. 1, 3, 4, 5, 7 and others, the teacher must draw the student’s attention to the indicated structure, which determines the nature of the performance. When playing into a theme without accompanying voices, the child’s hearing must immediately be included in the “empty” pause so that he feels a natural breath in it before the unfolding of the melodic line. The feeling of such polyphonic breathing
very important when studying cantilena preludes, inventions, symphonies, fugues.
The iambic structure of Bach's themes also determines the peculiarity of Bach's phrasing, which students must be aware of. Starting from a weak beat of the bar, the theme freely “steps over” the bar line, ending on a strong beat, thus, the boundaries of the bar do not coincide with the boundaries of the theme, which leads to a softening and weakening of the strong beats of the bar, subordinate to the inner life of the melody, its desire for semantic culminating peaks - the main thematic accents. Bach's thematic accents often do not coincide with metric ones; they are determined not by meter, as in classical melody, but inner life Topics. The intonation peaks of Bach's theme usually occur at weak beats. “In Bach’s theme, all the movement and all the strength rush towards the main emphasis,” wrote A. Schweitzer: “On the way to it, everything is restless, chaotic; upon its entry, the tension is discharged, everything that precedes is immediately clarified. The listener perceives the theme as a whole with clearly defined contours." And further, “... in order to play Bach rhythmically, one must emphasize not the strong beats of the bar, but those on which the emphasis falls in the meaning of the phrasing.” Students unfamiliar with features
Bach's phrasing, they often replace the thematic accent with a time-based accent, which is why their theme falls into pieces, loses its integrity and internal meaning.
Another essential feature of Bach's thematicism is the so-called hidden polyphony or hidden polyphony. Since this feature is common to almost all Bach melodies, being able to recognize it appears to be a critical skill that prepares students for more complex tasks.
Let us draw the student's attention to the fact that Bach's melody often creates the impression
concentrated polyphonic fabric. Such saturation of a single-voice line
achieved by the presence of a hidden voice in it. This hidden voice appears only in the melody where there are leaps. The sound left by the jump continues to sound in our consciousness until the tone adjacent to it appears, into which it resolves.
We will find examples of hidden two-voices in Little Preludes No. 1,2,8,11, 12 parts of the first. In Little Prelude No. 2 with-moll(part two) we will introduce the student to hidden two-voices of the type that is most often found in Bach’s keyboard works.
Such a movement of the hidden voice will help to consolidate in the child’s mind the figurative name “path”. Such a track should be performed sonorously, with support. The hand and finger are lowered onto the keys slightly from above, which results in a lateral movement of the hand.
A voice repeating the same sound should be played barely audible. The student will use the same technique when working on more complex works, for example, Alemanda from French Suite E-dur. Minuet 1 from Partita 1 and others.
So, having determined the nature of the sound of the theme, its articulation, phrasing, climax, carefully winningwHaving sung into the topic, the student moves on to familiarize himself with the first imitation of the topic, called the answer or companion. Here it is necessary to direct the student’s attention to the question-and-answer dialogue of the topic and its imitation. In order not to turn the imitations into a monotonous series of repetitions of the same theme, Braudo advises playing one of the themes, singing the other, then performing the dialogue between the leader and the companion at two pianos.
This type of work greatly stimulates hearing and polyphonic thinking.
Often teachers have a question: how to perform an imitation - to emphasize it or not. There is no clear answer to this question. In each specific case, one should proceed from the nature and structure of the play. If the counterposition is close in nature to the theme and develops it, as, for example, in Little Prelude No. 2 C-dur(ch.1) or Invention No. 1 C-dur, then to preserve the unity of the theme and the counterposition, imitation should not be emphasized. As L. Roizman figuratively put it, if each presentation of the theme is performed somewhat louder than other voices, then"... we find ourselves witnessing a performance about which we can say: theme forty times and fugue not a single time." In Bach's two-voice polyphonic pieces, imitation most often should be emphasized not by volume, but by a different timbre from the other voice. If the upper voice is played loudly and expressively, but the lower one is easy and invariably quiet, the imitation will be heard more clearly than when it is performed loudly.The theme - depending on the dynamic plan - may sometimes sound quieter than the other voices, but it should always be significant, expressive, noticeable.
Marking Braudo's imitations is considered appropriate in cases where the main character of the work is associated with a constant alternation of motives, with their constant transfer from one voice to another. The roll call of voices in this case is included in the main image of the work. It is with such a roll call that the bright, not devoid of humor, character of Invention No. 8 is connectedF- dur. Little Prilude No. 5 E-dur.
After mastering the topic and answer, work begins on the counter-addition.
The counter-compound is worked out differently than the theme, since the nature of its sound and dynamics can only be established in combination with the answer. Therefore, the main method of work in this case is to perform the answer and counter addition in an ensemble with a teacher, and at home - with both hands, which greatly facilitates finding the appropriate dynamic colors.
Having worked well on the theme and antithesis, and clearly understood the relationships: theme - answer, theme - antiaddition, answer - antiaddition, you can move on to carefully working on the melodic line of each voice. Long before they are combined, the piece is performed in two voices in an ensemble with a teacher - first in sections, then in its entirety and, finally, completely transferred into the hands of the student. And then it turns out that in most cases the student, even if he hears the upper voice quite well, does not hear the lower voice at all, as a melodic line. In order to really hear both voices, you should work by concentrating your attention and hearing on one of them - the top one (as in non-polyphonic works).
Both voices are played, but in different ways: the upper one, to which attention is directed, isf,
espressivo, lower - pp (exactly). G. Neuhaus called this method the “exaggeration” method.
Practice shows that this work requires just such a large difference in sound strength and expressiveness. Then not only the upper, main voice at the moment, but also the lower one can be clearly heard. They seem to be played by different performers on different instruments. But active attention, active listening without special effort is directed to the voice that is performed more prominently.
Then we turn our attention to the lower voice. Let's play itf, espressivo, and the top one ispp. Now both voices are heard and perceived by the student even more clearly, the lower one because it is extremely “close”, and the upper one because it is already wellwo sign.
When practicing in this way in shortest term good results can be achieved, as the sound picture becomes clearer for the student. Then playing both voices as equals, he equally hears the expressive flow of each voice (phrasing, nuance).
Such precise and clear wordswThe sound of each line is an indispensable condition in the performance of polyphony. Only having achieved it can you then work fruitfully on the work as a whole.
( compared to two-voice) increases. Concern for the accuracy of voice guidance requires special attention to fingering. The fingering of Bach's pieces cannot be based only on pianistic convenience, as Czerny did in his editions. Busoni was the first to revive the fingering principles of Bach's era, as most consistent with identifying the motivic structure and clear pronunciation of motives. The principles of shifting fingers, sliding a finger from a black key to a white one, and silently replacing fingers are widely used in polyphonic works. At first, this sometimes seems difficult and unacceptable to the student. Therefore, we must try to involve him in a joint discussion of fingerings and clarification of all controversial issues. And then seek mandatory compliance with it.
Work on three- to four-voice works; the student may no longer learn
specifically each voice, and teach two voices in different combinations: first and second, second and third, first and third, playing one of themf,
espressivo, and the other -pp. This method is also useful when combining all three voices together: first one voice is played loudly, and the other two are played quietly. Then the dynamics of the voices change. The time spent on such work varies depending on the student’s level of advancement. But teaching this way is useful; this method is perhaps the most effective. Other ways of working on polyphony include: playing different voices with different strokes (legatoand poplegatoorstaccato); execution of all voices p, transparent; the performance of the voices is smooth with specially focused attention on one of them; performance without one voice (imagine these voices internally or sing). These methods lead to clarity of auditory perception of polyphony, without which the performance loses its main quality - clarity of voice. To understand a polyphonic work and the meaningfulness of the work, the student must, from the very beginning, imagine its form, its tonal-harmonic plan.
A more vivid identification of form is facilitated by knowledge of the unique dynamics in polyphony, especially Bach's, which consists in the fact that the very spirit of music is not characterized by its overly crushed, wave-like application. Bach's polyphony is most characterized by architectural dynamics, in which changes in large structures are accompanied by new dynamic lighting.
Studying Bach's works is, first of all, a big analytical work. To understand Bach's polyphonic pieces, you need special knowledge and a rational system for assimilating them. Achieving a certain level of polyphonic maturity is possible only under the condition of a gradual, smooth increase in knowledge and polyphonic skills. A music school teacher who lays the foundation in the field of mastering polyphony always faces a serious task: to teach to love polyphonic music, to understand it, and to work on it with pleasure.
Municipal budgetary institution of additional education of the resort city of Kislovodsk “Children’s music school No. 2” Methodological report “Work on the polyphony of I.S. Bach in the children's music school" Work performed by: Teacher of the piano department of MBUDO city of Kislovodsk“Children's Music School No. 2” Pashkina Elena Nikolaevna, Kislovodsk, 2016. 1 Polyphony is a type of polyphony, which is a combination in the simultaneous sound of two or more melodies so that they alternately become leading in carrying out the theme in the exposition of a fugue: fluidity, discrepancy in cadences and caesuras of climaxes and accents in different voices. The area of musical art based on this type of polyphony is “polyphonic music.” Polyphony of the Baroque era in the 18th century was called “free style”, characterized by an interest in the inner world of man. The predominance of instrumentalism stimulated the development of organ chorale arrangements, polyphonic variations, as well as passacaglia, fantasies, toccatas, canzones, from which the fugue was formed in the 17th century. Fugue (from the Latin “running”) is based on the imitation of one or more themes in all voices according to a certain tonal-harmonic plan. Fugue – highest form polyphony. Imitation (from the Latin Immitato - “imitation”) is the repetition of a theme or melodic turn in any voice, directly behind other voices. A melody that sounds simultaneously with the theme of a fugue or other polyphonic work is a counterposition. Stretta (Italian stretta - “compression”) is a close continuation of a theme in several voices: the theme enters in the next voice before it ends in the previous one. The merging of polyphony with chordal harmony, the involvement of tonal harmonic development, the interaction of polyphonic and homophonic forms - all this opened up prospects for the further renewal of polyphony, the main trends of which were concentrated in the works of J. S. Bach and G. F. Handel. Working on polyphonic compositions in a music school has a number of difficulties, but also fascinating features, so familiarization with 2 such compositions should begin from the very beginning of learning to play the piano: from simple to complex. Bach repeatedly emphasized the need for melodious performance of keyboard music. The melodious manner of playing Bach's works is precisely characteristic of our pianistic school and in many works is precisely opposed to playing with a continuous non legato or with a too heavy deep sound. Such playing does not at all evoke a feeling of real melodiousness and does not contribute to the perception of each voice in its independent development. You need to begin analyzing a polyphonic work by studying each head separately. To understand how Bach's singing should be, Matteson names four basic properties of melody: lightness, pleasantness, clarity and fluidity. Particular attention should be paid to lightness - this does not mean lightness of content, but ease of movement. Along with ease, clarity (clarity) stands out as one of the most important characteristics of a melody. Correct execution requires highest degree clarity in extracting sounds and pronouncing words” - that is, the correct articulation of motives and phrases is very important. It is interesting to note that Bach himself seemed to be very interested in the idea of comparing music with speech. He was well acquainted with the ancient Roman theories of rhetoric, could talk about them for hours and even tried to apply these theories to musical performance. The dynamics during the performance of Bach's works should, first of all, be aimed at revealing the independence of each voice. Of course, it is necessary to achieve a certain color for each voice, and within the appropriate color, the voice must have its own individual dynamic line, determined by the melody. Maintaining reasonable measures and avoiding any exaggeration is very important when performing Bach's music, because... this is exactly what 3 is one of the main aesthetic principles that era, distinguishing Bach's art from the music of subsequent eras, in particular from the romantic. It is necessary to cultivate a sense of proportion and style in students. After all, it is not uncommon for us to encounter such student performances of Bach’s music, in which in a short period there is a huge range of sonority - from pp to ff, changes in tempo, unjustified accelerations and decelerations. But these icons of modern art were apparently not held in high esteem two centuries ago. In their treatises on the art of playing the harpsichord, the authors always and above all recommended beauty, subtlety and precision. Bach himself did not strive to achieve forced sonority, but a timbre that was “as flexible as possible.” Let us remember what they said about Bach’s playing: “When he wanted to express strong emotions, he did it not like many others - by exaggerated force of impact - but ... by internal artistic means.” When learning, the most suitable are various gradations of piano - with a good feeling of the fingertips. At the same time, it is easier to hear every voice and the hearing does not become tired. The correct tempo of the piece also requires special attention. Of course, extremely fast tempos should be avoided, but extremely slow tempos are also unacceptable: the idea that all fast tempos used to be much slower than now is hardly true. Throughout the piece, the tempo should generally be uniform, but not frozen - it should be remembered that the basis of music is not counting, but the free breathing of melodic thought, pushing with a rhythmic impulse and not constrained by the bar line. It is important to listen carefully to the polyphonic fabric. In order to hear more intense episodes, the student will have to involuntarily 4 slow down the movement a little, and, conversely, in more rarefied places, return to the main movement. The same applies to conclusions - there is no need to specifically require slowdown, you should simply show the student the entire structure of this conclusion, pay attention to the smallest details, invite him to listen to them. With such a sensitive attitude to the musical fabric, the tempo of the performance will not be frozen, but will change slightly - like breathing. Melismas in polyphony are a separate topic. It is impossible to agree with their arbitrary decoding - after all, Bach himself was a supporter of accuracy and in a number of works he even wrote out turns in notes that could be notated with one or another symbol. On the other hand, Bach (according to Kreutz) wrote out the symbols of decorations rather carelessly, relying mainly on the experience of the performers. The table of decorations written by Bach in his own hand in the “Wilhelm Friedemn Music Book” cannot be considered as a panacea for all ills - after all, it was intended for the very beginning of learning. Surely Bach himself viewed it only as a set of rules that were the starting point for further improvement (this is evidenced by the fact that Bach did not “create” anything here, but almost rewrote this table from the French theorist d’Anglebert). In the future melismatics entered the student's consciousness as a natural part of music - the main role in teaching was played by the teacher's visual demonstration. Apparently, every teacher should be more inquisitive and study not only Bach's table, but also ancient treatises, primarily F.E. Bach , in which the formulas of the decorations are written out in the text. "Little Preludes and Fugues" provide irreplaceable material for initial familiarization. Subsequent study with a more Bachian complex keyboard style of Bach's music must certainly include associations with what has been covered earlier, finding parallels in simpler pieces In the absence of many instructions in the notes and with the lost living performing tradition, only the constant development of the fundamentals received at the beginning of training, the constant attraction of the student’s attention to to various parties performance (tempo, dynamics, decorations, etc.) will provide an opportunity to develop a real performing understanding of Bach’s music. Detention is one of the foundations of all Bach polyphony. In Prelude No. 6 d-moll and No. 7 e-moll, literally the entire fabric consists of arrests, which are the most important impetus for development here. These detentions cannot be performed with a flat, inexpressive sound. As a demonstration, you should take 3-4 bars of the e-moll prelude and show the student all three elements: 1) preparation (E - in the third quarter), 2) retention (first quarter), 3) resolution (second quarter). Then you need to work on the upper voice: take E intensely and then very coherently, with a slight lift of the hand, extract D a little more quietly. Do the same, adding a middle voice, in which you need to lean somewhat on the first beat of F. Likewise, the student should work on arrests throughout the play. In the future, he will encounter detentions many times, and with such work they will never pass by him, but will be perceived by him as the most active and expressive element of language. One of the most difficult problems (especially at an early stage of training) is actually maintaining (with your fingers) all the voices. Unfortunately, not all teachers are uncompromising about voice disorders. How often do students confuse their voices when playing, one voice directly transforms into another, etc. It is necessary to teach the correct work from the very beginning - to play each voice separately, to play two voices with two hands that should be performed with one hand. In this case, it is necessary 6 for the timbre difference between these voices to immediately become clear. The fingers should feel this difference - turning or tilting the hand will help transfer the support to the upper or lower voice. It is very useful to sometimes stop the student so that he can hear the entire vertical and check whether all his voices are heard. In Prelude No. 10 gmoll and No. 4 –D-major, the right hand leads the duet of two voices almost throughout. Teaching a little pianist to hear all this fabric, to feel all the sustained notes not as stops in movement, but as its integral element is a task that justifies any expenditure of labor and time. It was Bach who was one of the first German composers, in whose work a new era was expressed, characterized by an interest in man, in the human personality. This is primarily visible in his themes - bright, expressive, complex altered harmonies, and bizarre rhythmic outlines. And in pedagogical activity Bach feels like a new approach. If we take his pedagogical works such as the inventions, then one of the main tasks that Bach set for these plays was to instill in his students a “taste for writing.” Since here the music is of a completely new, individual genre and form, an awakening personality and creative intuition will be consciously nurtured on it. The inventions and symphonies are known in three editions. In 1720, the composer entered many of these works into the Notebook of his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, where the two-voice pieces, originally called preambles (that is, preludes, introductions), were placed separately from the three-voice pieces, then called “fantasies.” The second author's edition was preserved only in a copy of one of Bach's students. The richly ornamented pieces in this version were arranged exclusively by key: each three-voice piece was preceded by a two-voice piece of the same key. In the third, final edition of 1723, Bach again divided the inventions and symphonies 7 in Wilhelm Friedemann's Notebook, the first half of which was located on the steps up to major scale: C, d, e, F, G, a, then - in descending and altered steps in tonalities of the second degree of kinship: h, B, A, g, f, E, Es, D, s. The order of three-voice inventions (called fantasies here) is similar. In the final version, Bach arranges them differently: C, c, D, d, E, e, F, f, G, g; A, a, B, h. As we see, they are located this time regardless of the relationship of tonalities, simply in an ascending sequence with the filling of a number of chromatic steps. Apparently, Bach applied here - with the necessary modifications - the principle of arrangement that he had already found for the Well-Tempered Clavier a year earlier (in 1722). The composer's two-time return to this collection suggests that he attached particular importance to the Inventions and Symphonies. The definition of invention, which was almost never used in the music of that time, comes from the Latin invention, invention, invention. Subsequently, this name was arbitrarily extended by the editors of Bach's works to symphonies, which in this way turned into three-part inventions. In piano pedagogy, the term “Symphony” does not create any inconvenience, while the current name “three-part invention” does not quite legitimately unite two types of pieces, which were strictly distinguished by their author. Despite the educational purpose of “inventions and symphonies,” their expressive sphere is unusually wide. “..Each of these plays is a miracle in itself and is unlike any other,” wrote A. Schweitzer, adding that these thirty plays could have been created “only by a genius with an infinitely rich inner world"The lengthy text of the title page of the last edition of the cycle clearly testifies to the goal Bach pursued in the "Inventions": "A conscientious guide in which clavier lovers, especially those eager to learn, are shown a clear way of how to play cleanly not only with two voices , but with further improvement, correctly and well perform the three required voices, learning at the same time not only good inventions, but also correct development; the main thing is to achieve a melodious manner of playing and at the same time acquire a taste for composition. Composed by Johann Seb. Bach, the Grand-Ducal Kapellmeister of Anhalt-Keten. From the birth of Christ the year 1723.” For us this annotated title is of double interest. It shows how highly the creator of “Inventions” valued the melodious style of playing. To cultivate such a manner, to teach the performance of polyphony and to instill a penchant for composition - this is why “Inventions and Symphonies” were written. However, the first of the tasks formulated by the composer himself was not always adequately taken into account by piano pedagogy. Here is what F. Busoni wrote, for example, almost 80 years ago: “A detailed examination of the usual, universally practiced system of musical training led me to the conviction that Bach’s inventions in most cases are intended only to serve as dry piano-technical material for beginners , and that on the part of gentlemen piano teachers little and rarely is anything done to awaken in students an understanding of the deep meaning of these Bach creations" Deep meaning inventions - this is what the performer must first feel and reveal, a meaning that does not lie on the surface and, unfortunately, is often underestimated even now. Much in understanding these pieces is achieved through appealing to the performing traditions of Bach’s era, and the first step on this path should be considered the student’s acquaintance with the real sound of those instruments (harpsichord, clavichord) for which Bach wrote his clavier works. A real sense of their sound enriches our “Imagination of the composer’s work, helps select expressive means, protects against stylistic errors, and expands the auditory horizon.” In this regard, an important and not yet resolved question arises about what instruments Bach intended his “Inventions” and other works for. This question has been repeatedly raised in the literature on Bach. Conflicting evidence, conjectures and points of view, often one-sided, were expressed. It is obvious that only a strictly differentiated approach to each work, consideration of its composition and coloring will in many cases allow one to come to fairly substantiated conclusions. It goes without saying that the student should know everything essential about both the harpsichord and the clavichord. Clavichord - small musical instrument with a quiet sound corresponding to its size. When you press a clavichord key, one string associated with this key is sounded. The clavichord is not characterized by bright colors and sound contrasts. However, depending on the nature of the keystroke, the melody played on the clavichord may be given some sonic flexibility, and even more, a certain vibration may be imparted to the tones of the melody. Advantages of the device: and the slightest disadvantages: a change in the clavichord's pressure on the key causes a sensitive difference in sound shades, since the string, which the metal tip touches when pressing the key (Pant), is located, as it were, directly under the performer's finger. The instrument can convey any subtle dynamic shades, their gradualness - crescendo and diminuendo - depends entirely on the will of the performer. The second advantage of the clavichord is the possibility of very melodious, coherent playing. The disadvantages include a dull and weak sound, although the sound is gentle, soft and warm. However, such a dull tone is not at all suitable for the performance of a number of polyphonic works, in which each voice is general movement must be heard with utmost clarity. In contrast to the subtle and soulful sonority of the clavichord, the harpsichord has a more sonorous and brilliant playing. Sound production on a harpsichord is made by touching the string with a feather or a metal rod. The harpsichord has a sharp, brilliant, piercing, but abrupt sound. Its inherent gradations of sonority are achieved by changing keyboards (manuals). One for producing a forte sound, the other for a piano. 10 The arrangement of the keyboards in the instrument is terrace-shaped, one above the other. It is known that Bach also used improved harpsichords with a pedal keyboard, which had a special device (copula) for connecting the upper keyboard with the lower one. On the harpsichord, fast pieces with continuous uniformity of movement or pieces of the toccata type (prelude from Volume 1 of the Kharkiv Theater in A minor) sound great. On the contrary, due to the short, abrupt sound, it is impossible to perform pieces on it that require a melodious, drawn-out sound, gradual nuances. Only the clavichord could bring to life the inventions Es-dur, F-dur, G-dur, A-dur. Since the sense of the instrumental nature of inventions and symphonies plays a very important role in determining their interpretation, our students, of course, should be knowledgeable in this area, moreover, they should really imagine the sound of both instruments. However, it is important not to forget that it is not blind imitation that dictates turning to the harpsichord or clavichord, but only the search for the most accurate definition of the character of the pieces, correct articulation and dynamics. In slow melodious clavichord inventions it is legato-fused, deeply coherent, and in distinct fast harpsichord pieces it is unfused, finger-like, preserving the harpsichord separation of sounds. Johann Sebastian Bach wrote “Inventions and Symphonies” for his students as preparatory exercises before the fugue to achieve complete independence of the fingers and develop the ability to perform complex polyphonic music on the harpsichord. The composer chose the title for his plays accurately, since his inventions are truly full of inventions, witty combinations and alternations of voices. The term was first used by the composer Clément Janequin in the 16th century. How can we perform Bach's works written for harpsichord and clavichord on our piano? How to use those rich dynamic tools, which it has and which ancient keyboard instruments did not have? There can be no question of abandoning these funds. One of the wonderful properties of the piano is the ability to perform works from a wide variety of eras and styles on it. And it is precisely the ability to find on the piano the means necessary to perform a composition various styles, is one of the essential components of piano mastery. It is necessary, first of all, to point out that when we talk about the use of piano dynamics in the performance of harpsichord music, we do not mean an attempt to imitate the sonority of ancient instruments on the piano; This is not about onomatopoeia, but about finding in the piano the dynamic techniques necessary for the truthful performance of Bach’s harpsichord works. Thus, the teacher’s first concern will be to teach the student to extract from the piano a certain sonority that is necessary in this case. I would call this skill the ability to organize sonority according to a chosen plan, the ability to logically instrument the piano. The development of a specific instrumentation that corresponds to the very essence of the work will be helped, first of all, by a clear understanding of the fact that different works may require the use of different piano colors for their performance. It is sometimes convenient to make this difference clear to the student through figurative comparisons. For example, the solemn, festive Little Prelude in C major can naturally be compared with a short overture for orchestra, in which both trumpets and timpani take part. The thoughtful Little Prelude in e minor can naturally be compared to a piece for a small chamber ensemble, in which the melody of the solo oboe is accompanied by string instruments. The very understanding of the general nature of the sonority required for a given work will help the student develop the demandingness of his hearing, and will help direct this demandingness towards the implementation of the required sound. We see that the means piano dynamics, applied to the 12 performance of a certain melody, naturally fall into two groups, performing different functions. In one case, a certain instrumentation of the melody is created using dynamics. We will call the shades of this group instrumental shades. On the other hand, dynamic means can serve a flexible, expressive and grammatically correct performance of the melody. The shades of this group will be called melodic shades. Changing the registers and keyboards of the harpsichord is a means of creating instrumental shades. The playing of the clavichord is devoid of bright contrasts. However, the dynamic clavichord gives the performer the means to impart subtlety, flexibility and spirituality to the melody. The piano cannot compete with the harpsichord in its ability to accurately create contrasting timbres, but the piano is superior to the harpsichord in its ability to add dynamic flexibility to a melody. And in this respect, the piano seems to develop what is inherent in the second ancient instrument - clavichord. Thus, the piano provides, to some extent, the opportunity to combine the contrasting instrumentation of the harpsichord with the flexible, within this instrumentation, performance of the melody by the clavichord. Melodic shades by their very structure differ from instrumental ones. They are more detailed, as they correspond to all the turns of the melody. Sometimes they are small: after all, they should not go beyond the limits indicated by this instrumentation. If the shades that play the role of instrumental ones are not difficult to identify in the musical text, then the melodic shades are difficult, and sometimes impossible, to fix. They should obviously be discussed at the keyboard, and a teacher rather than an editor can help develop them. With all this, we can observe the difference between melodic shades and instrumental shades. If when creating instrumentation one should achieve clear differences in the strength of sonority, recognize and practice them, then in melodic shades the goal is the opposite - to carry them out so that they are perceived not as a difference in the strength of sonority, but as a difference in the expressiveness of intonations. Is all this complicated? Too difficult? Don't think. A leader should not be afraid of difficulties when it comes to teaching a child to “speak out” at the piano. A child can learn this art. They just need to be guided wisely and patiently. From the very beginning of learning, it is important to take some path of ordering. Once this order is introduced in the very first steps of training, it will be possible to develop a demanding ear that will be able to subsequently resolve more complex issues. I repeat, it’s not a matter of rules, but of cultivating an ear that is demanding and strives for order. If we turn to the originals of Bach's works - to cantatas, orchestral suites, concertos - then in most cases we will encounter scores equipped with strokes. Bach also attached great importance to the designation of strokes in orchestral parts. So, for example, sometimes, due to lack of time, he released games from his hands that were not corrected, but with the strokes added. If Bach attached such importance to the articulation of his music, then how can one explain that, along with scores equipped with lines and, there are scores devoid of line instructions? The existence of undesignated texts does not mean, however, that the works recorded in them do not need a certain articulation. Both marked and unmarked scores for some reason were created by the same author, and in any case, articulation remains the most important vital basis for the performance of Bach's music. We will begin our remarks on articulation with a question that most often arises in school practice, namely: what articulatory style is the main one when performing Bach’s clavier works? This means an alternative between two manners - the manners of 14 connected play and dismembered play. It is obvious that both of these opinions are incorrect in their one-sidedness. It is pointless to decide whether a student should be taught to play forte or piano, whether he should be taught to play allegro or adagio. It is clear that performance requires mastery of both full sonorous light play, fast playing, and calm playing. But it is also pointless to solve the question: what is characteristic of Bach - legato or non legato? The art of articulating clavier works requires the development of both coherent and dissected playing, the development of these techniques, and their skillful opposition. It is best to start studying articulation by studying two-voice works, in which each voice is assigned its own special articulatory coloring. This is precisely the case demonstrated by the examples of the Sinfonia in A minor, the allemande from the French Suite No. 6, and the Little Preludes in E major and D major. The main intermotivic articulation is the caesura. Establish a caesura between motives, take a “breath” before the introduction of a new motive - is it possible to imagine a simpler means of developing in the student a clear idea of the motivic structure of a melody! The most undoubted type of caesura is the pause between motives designated by the author (example 39, Prelude W. K. I b-moll). Because the we're talking about about the execution of motives, the student should be taught to distinguish between the main types of motives. (Of course, at what point and in what amount information about the structure of motives should be communicated to the student, the teacher must decide). In this case, you should use the information that the student receives in solfeggio and theory classes. In any case, the student must distinguish: 1. Iambic motives, which go from weak to strong tenses and are often called beats; 2. The motives are trochaic, starting on the strong beat and ending on the weak beat. 15 But one should not exaggerate the difficulties of studying the entire variety of strokes. Practice shows that a student who has mastered the game legato well has already prepared himself to master staccato. Anyone who has developed staccatissimo will not be difficult to achieve a more extended non legato. After all, the point is only to teach the student to listen to how he articulates, to teach him to understand that the nature of the removal of the hand from the key has expressive meaning. We know that Bach himself intended the easy keyboard pieces not for concerts, but for teaching. And we must consider the real tempo of an invention, a small prelude, a minuet, a march - the tempo that is most useful for the student at the moment. What pace is most useful at the moment? The tempo at which the piece is best performed by the student. After all, if we do not consider it necessary to strive for the best performance at all levels of study, then it turns out that we hope to achieve good performance through a large number of repetitions of poor performance. So, suppose we have accepted that the correct tempo is that very leisurely tempo at which the student plays the piece best. One should not, however, imagine this slow training tempo as merely a preparation for the final tempo. Study tempo has as its main goal not preparation for a faster tempo, it pursues a deeper goal: to be preparation for understanding music. The thought of achieving speed contains many harmful things. It creates the misconception that the student's main goal is to move from a slower pace to a faster one. This idea obscures the main purpose of calm tempos - to provide an opportunity to listen to the music. What the student gains by working at a slow tempo—an understanding of music—is the most essential. And it is important to teach him that it is the understanding of music 16 that he considers his main achievement, something that should remain and be consolidated in all future work. Achieving a faster tempo he should consider a less significant circumstance and, moreover, permissible only if the basic quality of performance is not violated. The importance of a restrained pace is evident at all stages of work. It happens that a student who plays things quickly cannot play them slowly. Sometimes this circumstance is not unexpected even for him. He is aware of it, declares it, and is even dissatisfied if the director invites him to play a piece not at an easy fast tempo for him, but at a “difficult” slow one. All this contradicts the basic requirements of study. It is impossible to allow performance at a fast tempo if performance at a slow tempo does not fit in yet. Another frequently occurring case. The student can complete the task at a slow pace, or he can complete it at a fast pace. However, it is difficult to perform at a medium tempo. This again indicates a flaw, that the developed mechanisms of movement do not obey the student’s hearing and thinking. They only work at certain specific tempo levels. It is necessary to ensure that the student, once he has mastered a given work at a slow tempo, does not immediately move on to a fast tempo, but carries out the work through all medium tempos, maintaining in each of them the meaningfulness and naturalness that he acquired already at the first stage of work. Ways to indicate tempo (and character). Let's consider three ways: 1) generally accepted Italian terms; 2) descriptive expressions in the native language; 3) metronome instructions. A few words about using a metronome in your studies. The metronome makes it possible to study the instructions of various editors, compare your own ideas about tempo with these instructions, and make estimates and check the tempo from time to time; to check how well the tempo is maintained, then 17 this is how different the tempo at which the game ended is from the tempo at which it began, to what extent the tempo is maintained in different sections of the work. We see that the metronome is like tutorial allows for a number of checks. There is no need to allow the student to play an entire piece to a metronome. It would be harmful. However, it is necessary to require the student to be able to play to a metronome. The inability to coordinate your playing with the beats of the metronome should be considered some kind of disadvantage that you should strive to eliminate. Without starting a conversation about working on inventions, let’s note an important point when working on polyphony - fingering. It is important to carefully consider the fingering, use the best individual characteristics of the student’s hand, and ensure more perfect fulfillment of the required artistic tasks. The problem arises in polyphonic music when two voices are played in one hand. In such cases, complex fingering techniques are used: 1. Silent substitution 2. Shifting (5 through 4) 3. Sliding fingers. In three-voice inventions, the student is faced with a new challenge regarding fingering. Distribution of the average voice between the right and left hand parts. The accuracy and smoothness of voice production depends on the successful solution of this problem. The fingering in the keyboard works of ancient music has a whole range of specific features . It is interesting to take into account those techniques that were especially widespread in the 17th and first half of the 18th centuries. We are talking about performing scale sequences without using the first finger. So, for example, the ascending sequence 18 in the right hand can be played with the following fingering: 3, 4, 3, 4; descending - fingering: 3, 2, 3, 2. These techniques give the game greater flexibility. They retain their role in modern pianism. Particular attention should be paid to fingering, which itself predetermines this or that phrasing. A typical example is the beginning of the C-dur Invention. From the same Invention, motive b is shown not through a caesura, but through a slight accentuation of the first tone of the motive. This accentuation can be facilitated, as already indicated above, by a certain fingering, namely the use of the first (heaviest) finger on the first tone of each motive. When considering the fingering of a coherently performed three-voice polyphonic work, the first thing to determine is the performance of the middle voice. It is clear that the lower voice is performed with the left hand, the upper voice with the right. As for the middle voice, for the most part it can be distributed between two hands so that each can coherently perform the two-voice fragment assigned to it. However, the piano has a tool that helps you combine relaxed, free hand movements with a coherent sound. We are talking about the right pedal of the piano. Freeing up your hand and achieving a coherent sound are not the only functions of the pedal in performing piano polyphony. However, this topic is beyond the scope of this work. I will limit myself here to three comments: 1. A pedal taken at a strong time can pursue the goal of prolonging chord tones. Doesn't this prolongation create some harmonic support, similar to the bass, so characteristic of Bach's polyphony? However, the piano has a tool that helps you combine relaxed, free hand movements with a coherent sound. We are talking about the right pedal of the piano. 19 Freeing your hand and achieving a coherent sound are not the only functions of the pedal in performing piano polyphony. However, this topic is beyond the scope of this work. I will limit myself here to three comments: 1. A pedal taken at a strong time can pursue the goal of prolonging chord tones. Doesn't this prolongation create some harmonic support, similar to the digital bass so characteristic of Bach's polyphony? 2. A pedal taken at a weak time and removed at a strong one emphasizes the movement of the beats (this technique is most clearly developed in Petri’s editions). 3. The pedal enriches the sound of the piano, which has poorer overtones than the harpsichord, clavichord and organ. Invention (from the Latin inventio, find, invention) - small two- and three-voice polyphonic plays, written in various types of polyphonic technique. The most famous are Bach's 15 two-voice "symphonies". If the word “symphony” (Greek consonance) was already widespread, denoting mostly an instrumental work, then the word “invention” when applied to music was rare, and was usually used in the art of rhetoric, where it meant finding arguments that can be used to development of thought. The latest manuscript that is an indisputable autograph is dated 1723. In it, the plays are arranged in the order in which they are known from all editions; two-voice ones are called inventions, three-voice ones are called sinphonies. This manuscript undoubtedly represents the author's final version, as evidenced by the care with which it was prepared and the fact that it is equipped with a title page, the title of which sets out in detail the pedagogical objectives of this collection. In these pieces, Bach combines learning to play an instrument (playing polyphony, developing melodious sound production) with teaching composition 20 (natural development, not bound by generally accepted patterns, interesting searches for new forms). But the inventions, despite their utilitarian and pedagogical purpose, are distinguished by their rich figurative content - these are true masterpieces of musical art. Not only a student, but also a mature musician, returning to the inventions, will find something new for himself every time. Some numbers (especially 2-voice inventions, for the perception of which the work of inner hearing and imagination is so important, supplementing the really missing middle voices) require such internal concentration that they can only be truly understood by adults. Having created such a wonderful pedagogical collection, Bach limited himself to recording notes and decorations, details as an indication, leaving such important dynamics, tempo, phrasing, fingering, and deciphering of decorations not recorded. All this information was communicated to students in class. It is known from the words of Bach’s students what importance the composer attached to the live performance and play of the teacher. It is noteworthy that Bach did not even indicate what instrument these works were intended for, because the clavier is a generic concept and at the time of Bach included two completely different stringed keyboard instruments - the harpsichord and the clavichord. Bach's oral " performing tradition ” has long ceased to exist, so one of the important tasks is the pedagogical edition of the text, recreating the author’s intentions with a certain degree of reliability. Unfortunately, one of the most common editions in pedagogical practice, even of our time, is the first edition of Karl Czerny in 1840. K. Czerny, a student of Beethoven, a brilliant piano teacher (one of his students was F. Liszt) created a kind of edition of the works of Bach (1791-1857). Its advantages were thoughtful fingering, convenient distribution of voices between hands. 21 But Czerny often “corrects” Bach: smoothes out harmonic “roughness”, softens sudden modulations, changes decorations. In this edition there is no lively, characteristic phrasing - continuous legato dominates, frequent changes of cresc and dim predominate. The tempos are exaggeratedly fast, there are a lot of slowdowns of the tempo. Czerny claimed that in his editions of Bach's works he reproduced from memory the features of Beethoven's performance of these works. Czerny's editors gave pianists a completely distorted, false portrait of the great composer. The problem of interpreting Bach's works occupied one of the central places in the work of Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924) - a multi-talented person, one of the greatest pianists of his time, composer, piano teacher, expert in many languages, and a musical writer on aesthetics. Busoni provides his editions not only with performance instructions (phrasing, dynamics, fingering, decoding of decorations), but also with extensive notes. In the notes to the inventions, much space is devoted to the analysis of form. Sometimes we advise you to mentally discard some section or, conversely, continue development in order to clearly imagine the symmetry or violation of it in the play. Busoni himself writes in the preface to the inventions: “The moment of composition is very important, which is usually passed over when teaching; at the same time, this moment - like no other means - is called upon to develop the purely musical side of the student’s talent and increase his critical sense.” Let us remember that Bach himself, when teaching, strove to ensure that all elements of the work were understood by students. “What you don’t understand, you can never do correctly,” he often told his students. The notes to the inventions contain many comments that give specific advice: which voice should be emphasized, which one should be put into the background, how important it is to withstand all the drawn-out sounds so that polyphony is heard all the time. In the NB to the three-voice invention, to No. 9 in f minor, Busoni talks in detail about how 22 when performing a polyphonic work, all voices can be made clearly audible. Execution should help identify the equality of each of the 3 topics. But in an attempt to highlight all the voices at the same time, one might hear that one voice is only senselessly drowning out the other. Therefore, less attention should be paid to highlighting the soprano; on the other hand, the theme indicated by the number III (even if it occurs in the tenor or bass), due to its clear rhythmic outlines, will always be clearly perceived. Thus, when performing, you need to attach special importance only to the third voice; in the other 2 voices, only characteristic moments require stronger emphasis. Theme III appears in the upper voice only twice in the entire piece, and thus the performer is faced with the task of coping with the opposition of the two lower voices with one left hand; The most important point for this is to accurately apply the appropriate fingerings and learn to play two voices with one hand with varying degrees of strength. The form of invention is closely related to the form of fugue and appears as a tripartite. The first part is “exposition”, themes I and II appear in all voices in a modulation sequence: tonic – dominant – tonic. The second part opens with a modulating interlude - an intermediate episode that prepares and connects various developments of the theme, leading to As-dur. Three themes run in this key and then in its dominant. The following three-bar interlude finally leads to the key of C minor. The third part repeats the second in the tonal relationship of the dominant. In order to finally consolidate the main tonality, the piece ends with a three-bar coda. 23 In terms of content, this play, probably the most significant section of the collection, reveals in its interpretation of the triple counterpoint clarity of form, depth of feelings - genuine music of “passions”. The most intelligible and frequently performed inventions in the middle classes of children's music schools are 2-voice inventions. The most common are invention No. 1 C-dur, No. 8 F-dur, No. 14 B-dur, etc. The C-dur invention can be classified as a tripartite one. The semi-beat theme is the basis of the entire composition. The theme runs four times alternately in the upper and lower voices. Then carry out its inversion four times in a descending move to the key of the dominant. Almost completely symmetrical to the first is the second movement, ending in a parallel key in which both voices exchange roles. The third and fourth measures are a free imitation of the previous two. The doubling of the first two bars in the second part becomes more organic in the third, where the theme in the main form and its counter-composition alternate bar by bar. This piece is characterized by the highest degree of cheerful and rhythmic performance. Invention No. 8 F-dur is also tripartite. The canon, which at the beginning goes strictly to the octave, jumps to the lower nona in order to then be interrupted and indicate the beginning of development. In the 2nd movement, a more animated modulation movement is noticeable. The third part becomes an exact copy of the entire first part transported to its subdominant. This piece is fast and easy, and also requires absolute precision and clarity in performance. Invention No. 14 B-dur - the theme of the piece is composed of two motifs clinging to each other, starting from the beat and moving along the sounds of the triad. The second part of the development, where only the first of them develops, should be considered as a variant of syncopation, thanks to which the rhythmic stress required here is easily achieved. After the interlude - the intermediate episode - the initial construction is carried out in the 24th key of the dominant (similar to the answer). The conclusion of the first movement is a sixteen-bar period. A single presentation of a theme, expanded through a final cadence, cannot be an independent part. The eight final bars here should be considered to belong to the second movement or as an “addition” included only to satisfy the need for symmetry. So, having examined several inventions, I would like to note some main points that should serve as a guide to a correct understanding of Bach's style. This style is distinguished, above all, by masculinity, energy, breadth and grandeur. Soft nuances, use of the pedal, tempo rubato, even excessive smooth legato playing and too much piano in general should be avoided - as contrary to the Bach character. Reproduction of the text, not allowing for different interpretations, this concerns the accuracy of the execution of decorations and the distribution of the middle voice between the two hands in three-voice formations. Choosing appropriate fingering, avoiding changing fingers on a sustained sound. I would like to say a few words about the “Great Organist”... The fact is indisputable. Bach was, obviously, an equally great keyboard player. In any case, he had no equal among his German contemporaries, with the exception of Handel, who, however, left Germany and settled in London. Bach dreamed of meeting him, but the meeting did not take place. Bach long years spent time at the organ, loved the “king of instruments”, knew its acoustic, timbre, and performing capabilities like no one else - that’s why Bach was so often called to inspect new organs in many cities, even remote from his place of residence (for example, from Leipzig to Kassel) . 25 In his practical activities, Bach came into contact with many people, communicated with them and gained honor and respect from many, even arousing feelings of admiration. The circle of close acquaintances is wide, but homogeneous. On the one hand, these are pastors and theologians. On the other hand – and this is the main thing – musicians. He longed to meet with them, and without exaggeration it can be said that he was personally acquainted with the best German composers of that time. Bach longed for these meetings, because he was interested in everything that was happening in music, he sought to absorb it more into himself, to be aware of everything new - what he had not yet had the opportunity to know. Bach discovered his thirst for learning the “secrets” of the composer’s craft in his childhood, when he copied the works of other authors for himself. During the life of I.S. Bach - he was then on the eve of his 50th birthday - a genealogy of his family was compiled according to paternal line, who discovered 53 relatives who were interested in music, for whom (with the exception of only a few) it was the main profession. The handwritten list, entitled “The Origin of the Musical-Bach Family,” lists seven generations. Johann Sebastian, a representative of the fifth generation, the recognized head of the “family”, was proud of this list, often returned to it, making additions regarding the places of service and the writings of his relatives. Bach died in 1750 at the age of 65. The date of death falls at the heart of the century called the Age of Enlightenment. The time he lived was marked by enormous changes in public consciousness, in socio-political and cultural life. The Viennese music school was formed under the influence of educational ideology. Albert Schweitzer in his monograph stated: “...Bach is the completion! Nothing comes from him, but everything leads to him.” In contrast to such a categorically formulated position, some researchers of the 20th century, also sharpening polemically, see in Bach not the end, but the beginning new era- that era, the pinnacle of which is the Viennese classical school, crowned with the names of Haydn - Mozart - Beethoven. In everything related to music, Bach shows rare awareness. He was versatile. And as a universal genius, he is unique. List of references: 1. N. Kalinina “Keyboard music by I.S. Bach in piano class" 2. I. Braudo "On the study of keyboard works by J.S. Bach in a music school" 3. ru.wikipedia,org Invention - Wikipedia 4. obraz.ruweb.net J.S.Bach. Two-voice inventions. Toolkit. 5. Orpheus music.ru J.S.Bach. Keyboard music. Inventions. 27
Work on polyphony in the senior classes of the Children's Art School.
Rostovskaya Larisa Borisovna. Municipal budgetary institution of additional education “Children's Art School No. 3”, Surgut A typical feature of piano literature is its polyphonic versatility. Polyphonic music poses a number of particularly difficult tasks for the pianist. He must simultaneously lead several melodic lines, several voices, giving each of them its characteristic touch, dynamic plan, phrasing, and at the same time combining these voices into a single whole. Performing polyphonic works requires the development of inner hearing and polyphonic thinking. It is necessary to teach the student to hear well both the part of each voice and the combination of voices, to hear the theme, its development, and various counter-compositions to it. The teacher should pay a lot of attention to the student’s ability to understand musical notation polyphonic music. The most important thing is that the student does not formally perform the musical text, but feels the uniqueness of each voice, as well as their joint development. It is not for nothing that R. Schumann considered a good musician to be one who has music “not only in his fingers, but also in his head and in his heart.” I would like to specifically dwell on the polyphony of J. S. Bach and the peculiarities of its performance. Bach's polyphony is a wonderful example of musical classics, and whether it is secular or spiritual, it is always saturated with a certain and significant content, extremely expressive, and polyphonic techniques do not detract, but only enhance the expressiveness of its sound. Musical works are dominated by great dynamism of images, contrast of sound effects, and a desire for grandeur and pomp. Therefore, it is not correct to try to present Bach’s work as works of only a specific educational form. The teacher’s task in working on Bach’s works is to most correctly fully reveal the full depth of content in the music and not reduce work on the work only to the implementation of themes and deciphering of decorations. The idea that Bach's music should be performed without a pedal is also incorrect. Analysis (as in any work) is carried out, of course, without a pedal, but performance must be done with a pedal. Moreover, pedaling can be different: timbre, harmonic, and also connecting, especially when voice guidance does not allow for good communication with the fingers. Bach's polyphonic work is very diverse in its forms, hence the variety of execution strokes: along with the non-legato touch, legato is very important, as one of the ways to achieve melodiousness.
In addition, Bach's polyphony requires a violation of established fingering principles, thereby creating new techniques, in particular, typical in Bach's music is playing the 1st finger on black keys, sliding the 1st finger from white to white, shifting the 3rd through 4 1st and 4th through 3rd. Thus, only the correct attitude towards Bach's music can ensure its true performance. How to learn a polyphonic piece? Like any musical work, first of all you need to imagine a polyphonic piece in the form of a kind of musical whole, and detailed work is only a necessary means for realizing and embodying the intended musical image. From a very young age, a student pianist should be accustomed to a special approach to polyphonic pieces: they should be taught in such a way that the polyphonic structure of the work is clear to the child. Each voice is studied separately, first by notes, then by heart. At the same time, the student’s attention is always concentrated not only on the obligatory details of the text - metric durations of notes, fingerings, ligatures, etc., but also on singing the melody. Any single voice in Bach's keyboard work is a beautiful melody that must be sung. It is important to teach this from childhood, since students still often view polyphonic works as something boring, dry and far from music. The teachers themselves are to blame for this attitude of the student towards the brilliant creations of the classics of polyphonic writing, who failed to reveal to the child the beauty contained in this music. So, performing the part of each voice by heart in a two-voice piece expressively and completely accurately in relation to the text is a mandatory step before learning it with both hands. But even after combining two voices, part of the time should be devoted to constant work on the part of each voice. If a three- or four-voice composition is taken, then first learn (from notes) each voice separately with the fingering that is indicated in the notes, then (from notes) they begin to connect pairs of voices: 1 + 2, 1 + 3, 2 + 3, 2 +4, etc. These connections, again performed with precise fingering, should sound like duets of two singing voices. This is exactly how the choirmaster works: first with each group of choristers: sopranos, altos, tenors, basses, then he connects two groups, after achieving satisfactory results, a third is added to the two groups, the general singing is only the final stage of the whole work, and this happens every day still checking individual groups in different combinations. So it is with the work of a pianist: after a well-mastered performance of individual pairs of voices in a four-voice composition, a third is added, excluding one of the voices in turn. Having made sure that the student hears all three voices, he got used to and learned the fingering of these voices and other details musical text, the teacher can allow all voices to be combined. This is a very important moment, because if you now constantly learn all four
voices with both hands, then the voice guidance will inevitably begin to become clogged, and all previous work will be in vain. Therefore, it is necessary to devote some time every day to checking individual paired combinations of voices in order to be sure of good quality performance. In addition, the student should be required to know the parts of each hand separately by heart, regardless of how many voices are in these parts (of course, if the middle voice unexpectedly breaks off in the left hand part and goes into the right hand part, then when played with one left hand you need to bring this voice to the end of the phrase). Such a solid knowledge of the parts of each hand (especially the left) separately by heart is necessary for confident performance on the stage, where in addition to auditory memory, motor memory is also of great importance. Finally, the entire polyphonic work being studied should be divided into a number of small segments, designated with letters or numbers. From these places, the student should be able to (separately) begin to play by heart with both hands together and with each hand separately. The training tasks listed above are necessary as preparatory stage before the artistic finishing of the entire work begins. We must always remember good performance A polyphonic work cannot be prepared only by mechanical rearrangement, a combination of the number of voices. The combination of all voices into a single whole work is new stage, which requires qualitatively new work. At the same time, the performer carries out his interpretive plan, not splitting the polyphonic texture into separate voices, but, on the contrary, combining the entire complex fabric into one whole. However, a working check of all the details of polyphony, carried out periodically, gives the teacher confidence that on the stage the student will “convey” the piece being performed, and the percentage of his losses will not be large. (When an invention or fugue is taught in class and not taken to the stage, the teacher can consciously reduce the level of demands on each of the listed stages of work). The patience and time that must be spent to master a polyphonic piece using the method described above will be fully repaid by the clarity of thinking, confidence and ease with which the student will be able to perform the learned piece on the stage. “It’s hard to learn, but it’s easy to fight,” this wonderful saying of A. Suvorov also applies to the work of a performing musician. In the process of cultivating polyphonic thinking in a student, “high-speed” methods inevitably lead to negligence, superficiality, and often to outright “hackwork.” Your goal is to teach the future performer not to be afraid of work, not to avoid difficulties; Only by loving the work can a performer count on achieving some heights in his art. Let's look at, for example, C Major Invention No. 1. How to work on it? First of all, the new piece must be performed so that the student becomes familiar with it
in live sound, how the theme develops polyphonically, and most importantly, how it should all sound. Tell and show the structure of the work. The invention is based on a theme of a lively, joyful nature. This is the seed from which the work grows; it sounds almost continuously throughout the entire invention. The Do Major Invention has three similarly constructed parts. Each part begins with an expositional structure (vol. 1-2, 7-10, 15-18). It is followed by a development-type interlude, which leads to a reprise-like construction and cadence that concludes the movement. Having studied the structure of the invention, you can move on to work. The student should be advised to work not only as a whole, but also in parts (not in “pieces”, but in parts). First of all, you need to tackle the topic. Have the student play it in different keys, forward and backward, left and right hand. Then let him play the theme (both types) and its imitation, starting first with the lower and then with the upper voice. In all cases the theme should be performed lively. It is important to feel how the sixteenth notes tend to the eighth note (at the culmination of the theme). It is also necessary to grasp the nature of this aspiration. In the process of work, it is sometimes useful to characterize the performance task in reverse form, so that it is easier for the student to grasp the most essential. In the sequential constructions of the middle sections, the aspiration of the sixteenth notes takes on a particularly joyful character. This melodic sequence must be played with unrelenting elasticity of rhythm. To better hear the theme, the student can play the exposition without the counter-addition. It can be practiced in the following way: the teacher performs the themes, and the student performs the counter-additions, then vice versa. And finally, the student plays for both: themes and counters. By nature, the sounds of the counterposition should differ from the theme, sounding as if in the background. It is advisable that the listed exercises be played not only with notes, but also without notes - this will force you to listen to yourself more actively and, with the help of hearing, find the place of opposition in the polyphonic fabric. List of used literature 1. Alekseev A. Methods of teaching piano playing. M., 1978 2. Braudo I. On the study of Bach’s keyboard works in a music school. M-L., 1965 3. Issues of piano pedagogy: collection. articles, ed.V. Nathanson. Vol. 3, M: Music 1971 4. Kalinina N. Bach’s keyboard music in piano class. L.: Music, 1974 5. Korto A. About piano art. M.: Muzyka, 1965
6. Lyubomudrova N. Methods of teaching piano playing. M.: Music, 1982 7. Timakin E. Education of a pianist. Methodical manual / Soviet composer 1989.