which Bach inventions should be taught/learnt firs

[janice]

what is the order of difficulty for the Bach inventions?  i saw a post for the WTC on here somewhere, but what about the Inventions?  i'm going to be teaching a former student of mine (she was fairly advanced when I taught her), and I am thinking of giving her Bach's Invention #1  (she can't take lessons until the fall), and having her see what she can do with it this summer, on her own.  that way, I could see where she is at, and i'm curious how she would play Bach.  he hasn't had lessons since she took lessons from me, and stopped about 12 years ago (had to raise kids), but she continued to play at church.  Any suggestions?  Thanks!!

[belvoce]

Invention #1 the first one I learned. It's definately one that's not too difficult, and if you haven't played an invention before, it's a great introduction to how they work.

[bernhard]

The two voive inventions can be roughly divided in three difficulty groups (bearing in mind that difficulty is many times subjective, so regard what follows as personal opinion):

Easiest: 1 - 2 - 4 - 8 - 10 - 13 - 14
Intermediate: 3 - 5 - 6 - 7 - 9
Advanced: 11 - 12 - 15


If you can play the most difficult ones, you may want to go ahead and try the three voice inventions (symphonies). The easiest of them (1 - 3 - 6 - 10 - 11 - 12 - 13) are comparable in difficulty with the advanced two voice inventions.

Also have a look here:

https://www.pianoforum.net/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=teac;action=display;num=1081198385

Best wishes,
Bernhard.