Bach Pieces

Over the weekend, Hannah and I recorded 2 new piano pieces that we recently learned. We both played Bach. I played a piece called Invention in C major, and Hannah played Prelude in C minor. I worked very hard to learn all the right notes, playing parts loud and quiet, and learning the piece by memory. Many of Bach's pieces have two voices/melodies, the right hand has one melody, and the left hand has a different melody. When I play, I am supposed to show both melodies. Bach wrote these Inventions, as exercises for his students to play with no mistakes. He wrote one invention for each scale. The first one was for C major, then C minor, and so on  for all the scales. I played the first invention in C major. My sister Hannah's prelude was one of 6 short preludes that Bach wrote also for his students as exercises. They were never meant to be performed, but since they are beautiful we decided to record both of them.

My name is Hannah, and I am doing a guest post on Sarah's blog. This weekend, I learned a new piece. It was a lot of work to learn it by memory. I had to practice this piece many times.  The piece is two pages long. I played it so many times but I just could not remember this piece by memory. One day I practiced only the left hand and I realized that I almost had it by memory. When I tried to record it, I played it perfectly without notes. The piece is hard because the left hand has it's own melody and the right hand has its own melody.

What did you think about these pieces? 

Should they be played only as exercises or performed as concert pieces?