As George set the photo of Kirov and Otto Leipzig by the fire to dry, he put on a record album and settled down with a drink. The music was a lovely piano piece I don't recognize. Anybody know what it was?
shareIt sounded like a string piece to me.
shareDid you ever find out what the music was?
shareIn the book I think its mentioned as a Mahler record that Anne gave George. Considering the accuracy of the rest of the TV version to the book, I wouldn't be surprised if they kept that accuracy on the music too. No clue which piece though.
shareIts described on the UK DVD subtitles as 'Bach- Prologue'.
shareThe music is by JS Bach - Prelude in C sharp major from Book Two of the "Well-Tempered Clavier".
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Small matter, but this wonderful prelude, in C sharp Major, has seven sharps, which means every note is sharped, which makes it insidious to play unless you memorize everything so you are playing it sort of by feel. Also, there are a number of accidentals, which are notes that are changed from, say, F Sharp, to F Double Sharp, which brings out the schizophrenia latent in most of us classical musicians.
I had a feeling it was Bach!
shareAbsolutely wrong!
I was a performance piano major in college, and there is categorically NOTHING different or more difficult about C# Major over any other key. Any Major scale follows the Do-Re-Mi- solfege, so in playing it it's no more difficult than say, F Major, which requires a slightly different fingering than a standard-fingered scale.
Any pro musician does not "read" music per se: we simply recognize the distances between the notes and react accordingly. Think of an organist: 2 manuals (keyboards) of multiple notes, and a pedal clavier as well- the brain could never recognize and assimilate all that data in time to actually play it.
..Joe