Ravinia 2019, Issue 7, Week 13

2:00 PM SATURDAY, AUGUST 31, 2019 BENNETT GORDON HALL DAN TEPFER, piano Inventions/Reinventions BACH/TEPFER Fifteen Inventions / Reinventions ° No. 1 in C major, BWV 772 No. 2 in C minor, BWV 773 No. 3 in D major, BWV 774 No. 4 in D minor, BWV 775 No. 5 in E-flat major, BWV 776 No. 6 in E major, BWV 777 No. 7 in E minor, BWV 778 No. 8 in F major, BWV 779 No. 9 in F minor, BWV 780 No. 10 in G major, BWV 781 No. 11 in G minor, BWV 782 No. 12 in A major, BWV 783 No. 13 in A minor, BWV 784 No. 14 in B-flat major, BWV 785 No. 15 in B minor, BWV 786 There will be no intermission in this program. ° World premiere JOHANN SEBASTIAN BACH (1685–1750) Inventions and Sinfonias, BWV 772–800 As his sons matured, Bach devoted himself in- creasingly to their music education. Music was the Bach family trade, and men were expected to pursue that profession either at church or court. The Bach dynasty, constituting several interre- lated family lines, so dominated musical activity in the central German region of Thuringia that professional vacancies often were handed down from one family member to another. Fathers assumed primary responsibility for educating their own children. Orphaned boys joined the household of an older sibling, uncle, or cousin for continued music education in the Bach fam- ily tradition. Johann Sebastian Bach had taught young mu- sicians for years before his oldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann (1710–84), required systematic training in keyboard technique, improvisation, and compositional forms. Over a period of three decades, Bach devised a series of keyboard col- lections to develop comprehensive skills on the harpsichord and organ. His first volume was the Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann , begun on January 22, 1720—two months after the boy’s ninth birthday—and steadily expanded over the next two years. Bach notated the earliest pieces himself, and his son inscribed the later works. The collection included 15 two-part Praeambula and 15 three-part Fantasias for a single keyboard instrument. Bach arranged these two groups in an arch-like key structure (C, d, e, F, G, a, b, B-flat, A, g, f, E, E-flat, D, and c; upper case = major). Soon after, Bach revised these “first drafts,” reordered the key sequence (C, c, D, d, E-flat, E, e, F, f, G, g, A, a, B-flat, and b), and renamed the two-part pieces Inventioni and the three-part pieces Sinfonie . Weydenhammer portrait fragment of Johann Sebastian Bach (ca. 1733) AUGUST 26 – SEPTEMBER 2, 2019 | RAVINIA MAGAZINE 107