Bach Invention No. 4: About that long trill...

February 5, 2024 10:19 AM

In Bach's d-minor invention, there's a long trill in the left hand on E. Typically, people play E and F, but I recently learned that there's at least one edition of the inventions that advocates E and F♯, which kind of blew my mind because it seems so obviously correct (given that the Fs in the right hand are all sharpened during the trill) yet sounds so wrong. Questions below.

1. Do you know of anyone who plays the trill E-F♯? (I'm betting no but would love to be proved wrong)
2. Why is E-F so prevalent when E-F♯ is arguably more correct?
3. Or is it??

I'm not even going to get into whether the trill should start on E or the note above.

The edition in question was published by Peters, edited by Czerny, Griepenkerl, & Roitzsch. It can be seen here: https://imslp.org/wiki/15_Inventions,_BWV_772-786_(Bach,_Johann_Sebastian). Search for "C.F. Peters, No.201, n.d.(ca.1890)". .

posted by mpark to Media & Arts (4 answers total)

Best answer: I googled "bach invention no. 4 LH trill e and f" and others have pondered this as well:

https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/90792/on-which-note-is-this-trill-in-bachs-invention-no-4

I found this one to be the best answer.

Additional responses:

"The trill is played with an F natural because it is what is harmonically correct in the scale of A minor. The E being the dominant, it is trilled from above by the minor second. The various sharps on F and G in the right hand are there for melodic reasons." https://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/2985174/bach-invention-no-4-measure-29.html

"Hard to describe in text, but try leaning into the E at the beginning of the trill a bit. By that I mean, let the first E be a little longer and at a slightly louder dynamic before settling into the trill. That might help your ear hear E as the principal note and F as an ornament." https://www.reddit.com/r/piano/comments/36c7j9/what_is_up_with_the_trill_in_measure_29_of_bachs/

To my ear the F in the LH sounds better than F sharp because you are in A minor at that point. Changing it to F sharp makes it sound like it is going into a different key, but in a way that doesn't make sense. The reason why it's F sharp in the RH and not F is because then you get the awkward augmented 2nd with an F. I think it creates a really interesting dissonance with the F in the LH and F sharp in the RH. I'm not sure where else you would find this in western classical music but it's funny how Bach makes things like this work.

Tl;dr: it's a false relation. A similar thing happens in the Italian Concerto, 2nd mvt, bar 10 with B flat in the LH and B natural in the RH but the RH resolves to B flat in the second beat. Having both hands play B flat or a B doesn't work IMHO - it sounds really strange, even stranger than originally written. Music theory and Bach: go figure. 😋

Also, the trill starts on the note above, so on F.
posted by foxjacket at 11:28 AM on February 5 [5 favorites]

Best answer: The Busoni edition (also on IMSLP) has the trill with an explicit F natural, with the following footnote:

The trill of a minor second, as given here, is , in the Bach sense, entirely right and in proper style even though the cross-relation with the upper voice may shock some too prudish ears. The trill represents the descending, the linking of the theme above it the ascending, melodic minor scale.

Basically there is no reason for the left hand on its own to be using an F sharp (the voice played by itself would not make sense). I don't know exactly how this style was perceived in Czerny's time, but with our current understanding of Baroque music, semantically it really has to be either an F natural or nothing.

It's pretty common in Bach for one voice to be performing some part of A-G-F-E while another one uses E-F#-G#-A in close proximity, but this is a very extreme case where they're right on top of each other for an extended period of time.
posted by dfan at 11:34 AM on February 5 [4 favorites]

Adding, after I saw foxjacket's answer: (1) the Italian Concerto example of dueling sixth degrees is exactly what I was talking about in my last paragraph, and (2) agreed, with our modern knowledge (and respect) of Baroque practice, all trills start on the upper note.
posted by dfan at 11:38 AM on February 5 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Awesome answers! Thanks to you both.
posted by mpark at 12:12 PM on February 5