COLORFUL BACH SCORES HELP TO NAVIGATE AMONG THE VOICES
OF BACH’S MUSIC LIKE A MAP

Visual polyphony

Colorful BACH scores open a new paths to the music of Johann Sebastian Bach by offering insight into the internal structure of Bach’s violin works to all interested musicians and music enthusiasts.

The red, green and blue note heads included in the scores mark the various voices in order to help recognize and distinguish between themes and counterpoint. Like a good map, Colorful BACH scores make it easy to find one’s way in Bach’s music. They reveal musical relations that are hidden in the traditional black and white scores. Due to the color presentation, it is no longer a stressful task to interpret the Chaconne and the fugues or to perform them but rather an intellectual journey delighting the eye as well as the ear.

The advantages of Colorful BACH scores

NAVIGATION

  • The colored scores show the internal order of the polyphonic structure of the Chaconne and the fugues,
  • highlight the subjects, countersubjects, stretto, inversions, double counterpoint embedded in the polyphonic texture,
  • make it easier to follow musical developments, whether horizontal or vertical,
  • guide the correct voice leading,
  • illuminate the form and the structure of fugues.

ANALYSIS

  • The colored scores rely on the most authentic original source, namely, the autograph manuscript kept at the Berlin State Library,
  • are constructed on the basis of a detailed formal, structural and motivic analysis,
  • reveal Bach’s intentions, his compositional tools and the conception of the relevant works,
  • highlight the unequalled richness of Bach’s musical language.
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INTERPRETATION

  • The colored scores make it easier to memorize the Chaconne and the fugues and facilitate the entire learning process,
  • elevate the interpretation of the fugues to a higher intellectual level,
  • gives orientation to musicians in performance issues by providing a strong basis for an adequate interpretation.
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Traditional score (printed in black)

Colorful BACH-score (printed in color)

  • includes no information that would help navigate among 3-4 distinct voices written in the same staff line,
  • is a map that helps to navigate within the music,
  • every note is black,
    provides nothing that would help differentiate one voice from another,
  • assigns different colors to distinct voices and fugue elements to visibly distinguish them,
  • obscures the internal fugue structure and the order of its parts,
  • reveals the peculiar order within the polyphonic structure of the fugue,
  • makes it hard to locate subjects, countersubjects, stretti, inversions and other compositional techniques embedded in the polyphonic texture,
  • clearly marks subjects, countersubjects, stretti, inversions, etc. and makes them immediately present to the eye,
  • makes it difficult to track horizontal and vertical musical developments and interactions among them,
  • makes it easy to track musical developments, whether horizontal or vertical, as well as interactions among them,
  • blurs the boundaries between the different sections of the fugue,
  • displays the main sections (i.e. musical units) of the fugue,
  • makes it difficult to identify distinct voices.
  • makes proper voice leading almost automatic.
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“To study and not think is a waste. To think and not study is dangerous.”
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