Bach and the Art of Improvisation: Volume Two

This book reaches you to the fullfilment of every organ improviser,you can feel how near Bach's mind you can reach by following this wonderful method,Excellent

As with Volume One, Volume Two of Ruiter-Feenstra's Bach and the Art of Improvisation claims to teach the reader how to improvise, but actually focuses almost entirely on composition, all while giving almost no practical instruction on how to transition from writing music to improvising it. In fact, she repeatedly gives the quite bizarre instruction to compose a piece, then to proceed to improvise another version of it! She describes her improvisation pedagogy model as "construction-deconstruction-reconstruction," which means to select an existing composition from the repertory, analyze it, then use it as a "blueprint" for your own piece. So even in the few places in the book where the author assigns the reader an improvisation task rather than one in composition, it most always is meant to result in a mere paraphrase of an existing piece of music, nothing original. Two chapters are devoted to fugue, but on reading them, I'm stuck that she really doesn't seem to understand that style: though she manages to get through some discussion of exposition (which she calls "exordium"), she doesn't give any cogent advice as to what to do after that, beyond an implied "stuff happens!" (This is borne out in listening to her attempts at composing fugues, examples of which may be found on YouTube). The book gives an overall impression of an author who, in spite of extensive research into historical theoretical writings, has never developed any actual practical experience in improvisation, or in teaching it. That may seem an outlandish claim, in light of her reputation as an authority in her field. But that doesn't change the fact that her books are so utterly tied up in being afraid to leave the printed page, and in the near-complete stifling of spontaneity. Compare her method to others, e.g. Dupré, or Rogg, which make only a few general references to composed repertory, and otherwise concern themselves entirely with assigning actual improvisations to the student, then always providing complete and clear guidelines. Ruiter-Feenstra's tomes could serve as introductions to music theory of the baroque period, also including extensive and useful bibliographies. But as actual improvisation methods, they are failures.