PMTNM Reader's Digest
Program Notes That Write Themselves
Recital season lives and dies on repertoire, and on whether a student can say something true about the piece they are about to play. The Bach Cantatas Website is a bottomless, free archive of Bach's music paired with texts, translations, and scholarly commentary, and it is where I send students to turn 'I'm playing a Bach piece' into a sentence a listener will remember. Even for pianists reaching well outside the cantatas, the context here, the church calendar, the poetry, the performer histories, is the kind of detail that makes a young musician sound like they belong to the music.
Featured Resource
Bach Cantatas Website →
A vast free archive of Bach's vocal and instrumental works, with scores, texts, translations, and commentary.
"Have a student write three sentences about their recital piece using what they find here, then say those sentences aloud before they play. It settles the nerves and, more often than not, it changes how they play the opening line."