I recently picked up Bach's violin sonata no.2 - Grave and played it through once to my professor the other day.
Here were a number of things we talked about: • Always think of the first beat. Quite often I'd play the phrase towards the middle of the bar which meant that the third beat became more important than the first. • Play the chords in a more arpeggiated way rather than two broken chords. • Play the bass part separately so you can hear each voice's line and direction. I practised this by getting my boyfriend to help play the bass line for me so that I could hear the note being sustained.
Hopefully these little notes help you think of this piece differently.
More notes:
For the first chord, keep the fourth finger (A) down already. (But keep up the 'arpeggiated chord' feeling)
Vibrato: use it to add a little colour. Avoid big 'ee-oo-ee-oo' fat wrist vibrato - particularly when playing a double stop that includes an open string (this will cause the pressed note to become 'out of tune' when a huge vibrato is used. in this case, use gentle finger vibrato.
Listen out for the perfect harmonies - perfect 4th, 5ths and 8ves.
Avoid 1-1 fingering. For example, bar 2, falling into 2nd beat - use 3rd finger on the 'c', then 2 for 'b' and hence automatically you're on 1st finger for the 'd#' double stop.
Trills always start from the top.
Since this is a deep, heavy, slow piece, don't play the trills too quickly - but not too slowly either! Use musical sense. *Thanks*