About the Inventions

What the Inventions are about

The Inventions are musical ideas – it is said that Bach wrote the pieces while teaching his pupils, giving them good material to practice them. But probably he composed them alone for his pupils. We don’t know how Bach improvised and how he composed his pieces but according to his contemporaries his improvisations were unlike others. (He was such a great player that even after his death he was remembered as a supreme organist and as a composer – one can imagine the effect of his playing on his audience). So probably he was able to compose very quickly, while maintaining a level of very high intelligence in his pieces.

The great miracle of the Inventions is that all of the music is organically derived from the theme of the piece in question. As a good example, analysts usually show the C-Major Nr.1 Invention, where virtually all the bars stem for the first musical theme of the piece. This means there is not a single bar in the piece that would have not derived from the theme! And that is probably the very reason why Bach was never equaled by any other composer. The level of intelligence of his pieces has never been challenged by anyone (maybe Beethoven comes closest, in my view).

So the Inventions are very-very closely knit tapestries, in which there is nothing that is not derived from the main theme!

What it means in terms of playing these pieces: the musician (and the listener, of course!) is intellectually challenged all the way through, not only physically, technically and musically. To play any of the pieces the player has to attain such a complete focus that is only alike of deep meditation. Nothing can be on the mind of the player, only that peculiar bar he/she is playing and the piece as a whole.

That’s why the Inventions are difficult to play!

But maybe it’s not right to say that.

The Inventions are challenging pieces and only those musicians can play them who are mature enough musically, technically and intellectually for them!