JS Bach - The Well-Tempered Clavier Book 2
£22.75
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Label: Harmonia Mundi
Cat No: HMM90268283
Format: CD
Number of Discs: 2
Genre: Instrumental
Release Date: 19th November 2021
Contents
Artists
Andreas Staier (harpsichord)About
Following several outstanding recordings of other works by Bach, Andreas Staier invites us to climb this Everest once again, but starting, as it were, with the north face, the second book, and revealing its poetry, its sensibility and its daunting architecture with the utmost naturalness.
Sound/Video
Paused
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1Prelude in C major, BWV 870
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2Fugue in C major, BWV 870
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3Prelude in C minor, BWV 871
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4Fugue in C minor, BWV 871
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5Prelude in C sharp major, BWV 872
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6Fugue in C sharp major, BWV 872
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7Prelude in C sharp minor, BWV 873
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8Fugue in C sharp minor, BWV 873
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9Prelude in D major, BWV 874
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10Fugue in D major, BWV 874
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11Prelude in D minor, BWV 875
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12Fugue in D minor, BWV 875
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13Prelude in E flat major, BWV 876
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14Fugue in E flat major, BWV 876
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15Prelude in D sharp minor, BWV 877
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16Fugue in D sharp minor, BWV 877
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17Prelude in E major, BWV 878
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18Fugue in E major, BWV 878
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19Prelude in E minor, BWV 879
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20Fugue in E minor, BWV 879
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21Prelude in F major, BWV 880
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22Fugue in F major, BWV 880
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23Prelude in F minor, BWV 881
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24Fugue in F minor, BWV 881
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25Prelude in F sharp major, BWV 882
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26Fugue in F sharp major, BWV 882
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27Prelude in F sharp minor, BWV 883
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28Fugue in F sharp minor, BWV 883
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29Prelude in G major, BWV 884
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30Fugue in G major, BWV 884
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31Prelude in G minor, BWV 885
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32Fugue in G minor, BWV 885
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33Prelude in A flat major, BWV 886
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34Fugue in A flat major, BWV 886
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35Prelude in G sharp minor, BWV 887
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36Fugue in G sharp minor, BWV 887
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37Prelude in A major, BWV 888
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38Fugue in A major, BWV 888
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39Prelude in A minor, BWV 889
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40Fugue in A minor, BWV 889
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41Prelude in B flat major, BWV 890
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42Fugue in B flat major, BWV 890
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43Prelude in B flat minor, BWV 891
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44Fugue in B flat minor, BWV 891
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45Prelude in B major, BWV 892
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46Fugue in B major, BWV 892
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47Prelude in B minor, BWV 893
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48Fugue in B minor, BWV 893
Europadisc Review
Staier first came to attention in the early to mid-1980s as solo harpsichordist in Reinhard Goebel’s Musica Antiqua Köln. Since 1986 he has pursued a solo career, building up an enviable discography of solo and collaborative projects on harpsichord and period pianos, ranging from Bach and other Baroque masters, via Beethoven and Schubert to Schumann. His performances are notable as much for their iconoclastic daring as for their scrupulous scholarship, and his fortepiano account of Beethoven’s ‘Diabelli’ Variations in particular has been widely praised. Now, having already recorded several of Bach’s early works as well as the harpsichord concertos and the great ‘Goldberg’ Variations from the composer’s later years, he turns his attention to what generations of pianists have come to regard as the Bible of keyboard playing. With the first book (compiled by Bach around 1722) due out in 2022, this release of the second book (which Bach put together around twenty years later) is dedicated to the memory of Eva Coutaz, widow of Harmonia Mundi’s founder Bernard Coutaz, and for almost 30 years the label’s head of A&R until her death in January this year. It’s a handsome tribute from one of HM’s most high-profile artists, but also a significant addition to the catalogue in its own right.
As you’d expect, Staier presents a forthright reading of this encyclopaedic collection of preludes and fugues in all the major and minor keys (24 in total). But he’s also thoroughly attuned to the wide variety of styles and rhetorical gestures that is contained within this fabulously varied collection. Somewhat more challenging than the first book of two decades earlier, Book 2 (which Bach likewise used in his teaching of both keyboard playing and composition at Leipzig’s Thomasschule) is also far more wide-ranging in style, encompassing everything from preludes reminiscent of two-part inventions and learned fugues in the stile antico (‘old style’) to surprisingly modern preludes in binary form (where each half is repeated, in a design that contained the germs of classical sonata form) as well as works in the fashionable empfindsamer Stil (‘sentimental style’) favoured by his eldest sons. Staier uses his favoured two-manual 2004 instrument by Anthony Sidey and Frédéric Bal, based on a famous 1734 harpsichord by Hieronymus Albrecht Hass of Hamburg. As on his previous recordings, he makes telling use of the instrument’s imposing 16’ stop, for example in the opening C major Prelude, thereby lending it an added grandeur and sweep.
The recording, made in Berlin’s Teldex Studio, is tightly-focussed, emphasising the harpsichord’s astonishing brilliance while adding just a suggestion of warmth around the sound. In the binary-form preludes, Staier frequently plays the repeats at a slightly softer volume. Most striking of all is the lute stop used in the first part of the C sharp major Prelude, as well as a tangy, carillon-like registration for the A major Prelude. In the great E flat major Fugue the 16’ stop adds extra weight, evoking the monumentality of Bach’s greatest organ works, but in the E major Fugue (the collection’s other great stile antico piece, and one of the greatest of all Bach’s fugues) Staier keeps the colours relatively clean and lets his spacious tempo, judicious rubato and Bach’s densely-packed textures do the rest. Among the most joyous items are the brilliant D major Prelude (with its shades of Domenico Scarlatti), the brisk, leaping gestures of the F major Fugue, and the cascading lines of the B flat major Prelude, its ebullience spilling over into the following Fugue. Tempi are consistently well-chosen, on the brisk side but with space given to the more expressive pieces like the lovely C sharp minor Prelude, while the more forward-looking numbers, which might possibly have been intended for the fledgling fortepiano, sound thoroughly idiomatic in Staier’s immensely stylish hands. Only the B minor Prelude feels rushed: one movement out of 24 isn’t bad going, and the closing Fugue has just the right suggestion of wistfulness woven into its elegant facade.
Without resorting to gimmickry, Staier’s arrestingly immediate performance vividly highlights the sheer variety and inventiveness of this astonishing collection, one of Bach’s greatest achievements. In the heading to Book 1, Bach declared that it was ‘for the use and profit of the musical youth desirous of learning as well as for the pastime of those already skilled in this study’. Similarly, this marvellously absorbing recording will prove fascinating both for those who want to delve deeper into the detail of Bach’s phenomenal mature sound-world and for those who simply want to be transported by great music.
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