Bach inventions 8/10

Verdict:

A nice, affordable edition at a very good price but it doesn't match up to the likes of Peter's Edition

Pros

Great fingering from Carl Czerny
Really cheap
Great quality book

Cons

Bad print
Old edition
Small notes

Key points:

• Price when reviewed: 5£, 7$
• Published 1986
• Edited by Carl Czerny
• 61 pages long
• 30 pieces altogether

This is a video of me playing Sinfonia no.6 (3-part invention, no. 6). This book is a great all-round, affordable book for reference but if you are interested in learning Bach’s inventions properly, I would not recommend. I purchased this book as I was learning one of the pieces for a competition and I wanted to see Czerny’s suggested fingering. It contains all 30 of Bach’s inventions.

Price
At around 5£, it is impossible to beat this book. As is the case with all Schirmer books, they are really cheap. That being said, they can sometimes compromise price over quality. If money wasn’t an issue, I would definitely not recommend this book but for most people, they look for value and for 5£, it’s hard to go wrong!

Quality
The actual materials of this book are ok. It is completely paper but strong and not flimsy. It uses 2 staples to hold it together which should be enough but not long-term. Again, for the price, the quality of materials are pretty good.

Fingering
The main reason I bought this book was as a side reference to my other editions for Bach’s inventions. In this regard, it was a very worthwhile purchase. The fingering, written by Carl Czerny, is top class and has many great ideas which you can pick and choose from. They seem to vary significantly from other editions they are well thought out and well executed.

Edition
Beware that this edition will not be of the same quality with the likes of the more expensive ones but again, value is the key word here. The notes are noticeably smaller which can be annoying as they are harder to read. The ink used for the printing is also not great but it has all the correct notes anyway so these problems shouldn’t be much of an issue for you.

Brand
Schirmer is one of the most common names when it comes to sheet music. They are known for having editions of practically every classical piece. For that reason, you can trust the company.

Why not 5 stars?
As I’m sure you can see, this was not the best edition which is available but it provides good value. A lot of work has been put into editing this book but the print size and other similar problems prevent me from leaving a 5 Star review.

Ratings:
Price: 10/10
Quality: 8/10
Fingering: 10/10
Edition: 7/10
Brand: 9/10
OVERALL: 8/10

In total, this was definitely worth every penny as it is so cheap. If anything, it will be a great reference book for Bach’s inventions. I would highly recommend it as it was a worthwhile purchase for me but as I said, there are better editions out there.