Applicatio (BWV 994)

Background

In January 1720 Johann Sebastian Bach started a small manuscript book of keyboard music for his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, who was nine at the time. This Clavier-Büchlein is a teaching book from its very first pages: it opens with an explanation of clefs and a table of ornaments, and one of the first real pieces in it is this short Applicatio in C major, catalogued as BWV 994.

The title is the clue. Applicatio was a word for fingering, the way the fingers are applied to the keys, and Bach wrote finger numbers into the music. It is one of the very few pieces with fingering in his own hand, which makes it a precious record of how a child learned the keyboard at the time. Some of his choices look odd today, because they come from an older habit of passing the longer fingers over one another in scales where a modern player would tuck the thumb under.

How to practise it

This arrangement is eight bars in C major and 4/4, almost all in eighth notes, and the hands take turns. In bars 1 and 2 the right hand climbs a scale while the left holds two-note intervals. In bar 3 the left hand climbs from C to C while the right holds thirds. Bar 5 sends the right hand back down from the high G, and in bar 7 both hands move, the right keeping a repeated C on top of its line.

Start with the scales in bars 1 to 3, hands separately. Here is one modern fingering for the right hand:

And the left hand's scale, with the usual crossing of finger 3 over the thumb:

Practise each scale until all eight notes are the same length and loudness. The thumb tends to bump, so listen for it.

Next come the bars where one hand holds a note while its other fingers keep moving. In bar 4 the right thumb holds F sharp for two beats under the notes above it; in bar 6 the left hand keeps notes down while it plays others; in bar 8 the right hand holds a C while it plays E, D and E below. Play these bars very slowly and check that the held key really stays down.

Then put the hands together one bar at a time, at about 40 beats a minute, before moving up to 60 and the full 80. Many players make the eighth notes slightly detached rather than fully joined, which keeps the lines clear. Above all keep the pulse steady, even when the scales start to feel easy.

For more on how finger numbers work and how to choose them, see the guide to piano finger numbers.