Bach's Prelude and Gavotte

This post continues my endeavor to "learn" all of the pieces contained within 50 Greats for the Piano, the free Piano book I got from Yamaha.

Like the previous pieces, these two are composed by J. S. Bach - the first Prelude from the Well-tempered Clavier, Book I and Gavotte from the French Suite No. 5.  Although, the Well-tempered Clavier and French Suite are considered technically challenging collections to learn, these two pieces are quite easy to learn.

I hope to explore further all the pieces in the Well-tempered Clavier and in the Bach Inventions, in the future.  I would hope to provide more detailed analysis of these pieces at the point.  In the mean time, I hope you would enjoy these pieces.

Epigram on Milton

John Dryden
Three Poets, in three distant Ages born,
Greece, Italy, and England did adorn.
The First in loftiness of thought surpassed;
The Next in Majesty; in both the Last.
The force of Nature could no farther go:
To make a third she joined the former two.

복사꽃 피면 (When Peach Blossoms)

By 주요한
My Translation

When peach blossoms
heart aches
as my thought 
continues on


Original

복사꽃이 피면
가슴 아프다
속생각 너무나
한 없으므로.

A Supplication

Abraham Cowley

Awake, awake, my Lyre!
And tell thy silent master's humble tale
In sounds that may prevail;
Sounds that gentle thoughts inspire:
Though so exalted she
And I so lowly be
Tell her, such different notes make all thy harmony.

Hark! how the strings awake:
And, though the moving hand approach not near,
Themselves with awful fear
A kind of numerous trembling make.
Now all thy forces try;
Now all thy charms apply;
Revenge upon her ear the conquests of her eye.

Weak Lyre! thy virtue sure
Is useless here, since thou art only found
To cure, but not to wound,
And she to wound, but not to cure.
Too weak too wilt thou prove
My passion to remove;
Physic to other ills, thou'rt nourishment to Love.

Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre!
For thou canst never tell my humble tale
In sounds that will prevail,
Nor gentle thoughts in her inspire;
All thy vain mirth lay by,
Bid thy strings silent lie,
Sleep, sleep again, my Lyre, and let thy master die.

샘물이 혼자서 (Spring flows)

By 주요한 (1900 ~ 1979)

My Translation

Spring flows
With a dance
Between the rocks of ravine

Spring flows
With a Smile
Between the flowers of treacherous pass

As sky is clear,
so that pleasant sound
rings through mountain and brook

Original

샘물이 혼자서
춤추며 간다.
산골짜기 돌 틈으로

샘물이 혼자서
웃으며 간다.
험한 산길 꽃 사이로

하늘은 맑은데
즐거운 그 소리
산과 들에 울리운다.

Two Bach Inventions.

I recently got a Yamaha Clavinova CLP-340 Digital Piano.  This piano came with a book of piano music, called 50 Greats for the Piano.  The difficulty of the pieces vary greatly, going from what one might consider a beginner piece to some ARCT-level pieces, if you are familiar with Royal Conservatory of Music grading-scheme.  My plan is to post here videos of me playing two of the pieces from the book each month with some commentaries. 


The first two pieces from the book is from J.S. Bach's Two-Part Inventions (No. 1 and No. 8).  Bach's Inventions are collection of thirty short keyboard pieces divided into two books - two-part and three-part inventions, where two and three refer to number of voices (N.B. the pieces from two-part inventions are called inventions, but the pieces from three-part inventions are sinfonia).  These are considered to be rather easy pieces to play, something you learn to prepare yourself for the Well-Tempered Clavier. 

I would like to conclude this post with a story and a fun-fact on the Inventions.  The story involves the famous Canadian pianist - Glenn Gould. For his first recording, the producer at the Columbian Recordings allegedly recommended something easy, like Bach's Inventions; however, Glenn Gould went for something a little bit difficult and a little bit obscure at the time - Bach's  Goldberg Variations.  Now for the little fun-fact on Bach's invention:  if you watched the original Thomas Crown Affair with Steve McQueen, which was a fantastic movie unlike the remake with Pierce Brosnan, you might have heard Henry Mancini's the Windmills of Your Mind, which was included in Thomas Crown Affair soundtrack.  I am not sure if it was intentionally or not, but the Windmills of Your Mind uses same motive as Sinfonia No. 15.  For comparison, here is the opening of the Thomas Crown Affair, with the Windmills of Your Mind playing and here is Glenn Gould playing Sinfonia No. 15.

봄은 간다

김억

My Translation

It's night
It's Spring

Night alone is sorrowful
Spring alone is thoughtful

Day flies by
Spring passes by

Deep thought is beyond reach
At that wind bird sings sorowfully

Black in me hovers by
The ring of bell passes by

Wordless night's sorrow
Silent Spring's mind

Flower falls
My love sighs.

Original

밤이도다
봄이다

밤만도 애달픈데
봄만도 생각인데

날은 빠르다
봄은 간다

깊은 생각은 아득이는데
저 바람에 새가 슬피 운다

검은 내 떠돈다
종소리 비낀다

말도 없는 밤의 설움
소리 없는 봄의 가슴

꽃은 떨어진다
님은 탄식한다.

The Gifts of God

 George Herbert
When God at first made Man,
Having a glass of blessings standing by;
Let us (said He) pour on him all we can:
Let the world's riches, which dispersed lie,
Contract into a span.

So strength first made a way;
Then beauty flow'd, then wisdom, honour, pleasure:
When almost all was out, God made a stay,
Perceiving that alone, of all His treasure,
Rest in the bottom lay.

For if I should (said He)
Bestow this jewel also on My creature,
He would adore My gifts instead of Me,
And rest in Nature, not the God of Nature,
So both should losers be.

Yet let him keep the rest,
But keep them with repining restlessness:
Let him be rich and weary, that at least,
If goodness lead him not, yet weariness
May toss him to My breast.

Notes on English Poem

The English poetries posted in this blog will initially come from The Golden Treasury, an anthology of poetries first published in 19th Century.  The full-text of this anthology is available at both Bartelby's and Project Gutenberg.