YouTube Description:

Almost any pianist, from a budding beginner to a pro like Simone Dinnerstein,
will tell you that one of the basic techniques of keyboard playing is also the
toughest to master: making your hands to do separate things simultaneously.

The great Johann Sebastian Bach knew this to be true. That's the primary reason
he composed his Two-Part Inventions. On one hand (pardon the metaphor) they are
rigorous exercises he wrote in the 1720s for the musical education of his
children and students. On the other hand, as Dinnerstein told the audience at
this Tiny Desk Concert, they are "an endless well of musical knowledge and
imagination." Some of the Inventions zing with the speed of a sewing machine.
Others dance and some unfold like a gentle aria.

Dinnerstein learned a number of Bach's Two-Part Inventions as a youngster.
Later she used them to teach her own students how to divide their brains. And
now, as an adult musician with a major career, she has returned to these
deceptively simple pieces, finding their complexity especially satisfying.

She also likes the way the inventions force the player to make the piano sing.
That's not easy when you consider the piano is actually a percussion instrument
of wires and hammers concealed inside a box. Bach himself noted that they are
good not only for playing "neatly in two parts" but also "to achieve a
cantabile style of playing." That's musical jargon for playing the music in a
singable style. And oh how poetically Ms. Dinnerstein makes our Tiny Desk piano
sing.--TOM HUIZENGA

Set List

J.S. Bach: Inventions Nos. 1, 6, 8
J.S. Bach: Inventions Nos. 9, 10
J.S. Bach: Inventions Nos. 12, 13, 14

Credits

Producers: Denise DeBelius, Tom Huizenga; Audio Engineer: Kevin Wait;
Videographers: Denise DeBelius, Olivia Merrion; Production Assistant: Faith
Masi; photo by Jim Tuttle/NPR