Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier

[George]

Try Tureck (DG) and Nikolayeva,

Big + 1 to the Tureck recommendation.

[Mandryka]

Interesting article by Colin Booth on Well Temperament here, he's apparently going to release a WTC this year

https://www.colinbooth.co.uk/bach-n-tuning.pdf

[prémont]

Interesting article by Colin Booth on Well Temperament here, he's apparently going to release a WTC this year

https://www.colinbooth.co.uk/bach-n-tuning.pdf

I shall repeat my recommendation of his "Did Bach really mean that".

[Mandryka]

I shall repeat my recommendation of his "Did Bach really mean that".

Yes, I saw that you mention it and went to order it, it was then that I saw his comment about releasing a WTC.

[milk]

Listening to Egarr for the very first time. It's a beautiful performance. He seems to take it horizontally. Makes for expansiveness and evocative grandeur.

[Ghost of Baron Scarpia]

Interesting article by Colin Booth on Well Temperament here, he's apparently going to release a WTC this year

https://www.colinbooth.co.uk/bach-n-tuning.pdf

I've looked into at least one of those schemes, and it seemed to me the mathematics didn't quite fit. It doesn't seem implausible to me that this was Bach's note to himself about how best to tune his harpsichord for the WTC, but without an explanation of the code it seems useless. You can't claim there is a unique way to interpret the squiggles that make sense.

I believe the work was only published in 1801, after even Bach's sons were dead, so their first hand knowledge of papa's tuning system was gone by then.

[milk]

Interesting article by Colin Booth on Well Temperament here, he's apparently going to release a WTC this year

https://www.colinbooth.co.uk/bach-n-tuning.pdf

did this come out?

[Mandryka]

did this come out?

Not as far as I can see, I'll write to him to ask if it's going to happen any time soon.

[prémont]

Not as far as I can see, I'll write to him to ask if it's going to happen any time soon.

He just sent an email, telling that vol.I may be purchased at his website now.

www.colinbooth.co.uk

[milk]

I just started listening to Masaaki Suzuki. I think his WTC is marvelous (just as his partitas are). I'm not finished with a first listen to it all yet, though. Suzuki is what? Grand. Emphasizing depth of beauty. Or perhaps my reaction is colored by knowing he's a Christian interested in Protestant themes of Gods' grace, etc. Even being a nonbeliever I'm glad for this perspective in/on Bach. I wonder how his organ-playing and cantata-conducting influence his cembalo performance style. How do people view his style here? It's not a down-to-earth way of playing it.

[Mandryka]

Suzuki works closely with Yo Tomita at Queen's University Belfast, and his essays in the booklets are well worth reading. I like the Partitas and the WTC too, passionate and intense performances, always well recorded. His organ music and his cantatas are passionate and intense too. The recently released Musical Offering is, I think, very stimulating, with a particularly valuable booklet.

Suzuki was a Koopman pupil, and in the harpsichord music, I think it sometimes shows. The tendency to use ornaments rather than agogocs, the arrestingly evident virtuosity, the way he moves the music forward and resists allowing silences to let the listener digest what he's heard.

I'll be interested to hear what you make of his French Suites, which so far I've found challenging.

[milk]

Suzuki works closely with Yo Tomita at Queen's University Belfast, and his essays in the booklets are well worth reading. I like the Partitas and the WTC too, passionate and intense performances, always well recorded. His organ music and his cantatas are passionate and intense too. The recently released Musical Offering is, I think, very stimulating, with a particularly valuable booklet.

Suzuki was a Koopman pupil, and in the harpsichord music, I think it sometimes shows. The tendency to use ornaments rather than agogocs, the arrestingly evident virtuosity, the way he moves the music forward and resists allowing silences to let the listener digest what he's heard.

I'll be interested to hear what you make of his French Suites, which so far I've found challenging.

I didn't realize he did the suites but his style doesn't seem suited for it.

[Marc]

This post is more Suzuki than WTC related, but I like the man's Anno Domini 1998 approach towards Bach more than I do his Anno Domini 2018 approach.
A certain depth and gravitas has gone lost during the years, IMHO.

This is mainly based on my listening experiences with cantatas, and some organ and harpsichord recordings.

The last 2 live concerts I attended though (organ Martinikerk & KV 427 of Mozart in concert hall) were great, especially the latter.

[milk]

This post is more Suzuki than WTC related, but I like the man's Anno Domini 1998 approach towards Bach more than I do his Anno Domini 2018 approach.
A certain depth and gravitas has gone lost during the years, IMHO.

This is mainly based on my listening experiences with cantatas, and some organ and harpsichord recordings.

The last 2 live concerts I attended though (organ Martinikerk & KV 427 of Mozart in concert hall) were great, especially the latter.

I'm not sure I get your idea. Can you expand it? His partitas were recorded in between, in 2002, and they are in my top 3 or 4 favorites. I saw him a few years ago in concert playing Sweelinck and it was amazing. I never liked his cantatas but I'm not big into choral music anyway. I like Kuijken because I'm more interested in interplay between instruments and voice, and color, than in choral grandeur.
I'm trying out his 2008 WTC II. Not sure if it's comparably less deep or grand. Is that your opinion? Or do you think both compare unfavorably to his earlier output?
Honestly, I'm transported by both books so far.
Lately,
I've been feeling that the cembalo is a superior instrument for Bach. It's something to do with voicing. Piano tones don't melt together. They ring against each other. The methods of dealing with the tone aesthetic of the piano seems to require or encourage something else. I'm not sure what it is. It's the percussiveness and wetness. With Suzuki, the voices flow and compliment each other. With a great cembalo style and sound, the way of producing drama and depth and beauty is a little different. Piano can become tedious so easily. Some of the pianists, even Schiff, the more I listen the more tired I get. Whereas with Suzuki, Van Asperen, Verlet, the more I listen, the more I find is there. 

[San Antone]

By cembalo do you mean harpsichord? 

[San Antone]

This post is more Suzuki than WTC related, but I like the man's Anno Domini 1998 approach towards Bach more than I do his Anno Domini 2018 approach.
A certain depth and gravitas has gone lost during the years, IMHO.

This is mainly based on my listening experiences with cantatas, and some organ and harpsichord recordings.

The last 2 live concerts I attended though (organ Martinikerk & KV 427 of Mozart in concert hall) were great, especially the latter.

Seriously: "Anno Domini"?

[Traverso]

By cembalo do you mean harpsichord?

Its the same.

[San Antone]

Its the same.

that has always been my understanding, but I wondered if there was some reason why he used the term cembalo ...

[Marc]

I'm not sure I get your idea. Can you expand it? His partitas were recorded in between, in 2002, and they are in my top 3 or 4 favorites. I saw him a few years ago in concert playing Sweelinck and it was amazing. I never liked his cantatas but I'm not big into choral music anyway. I like Kuijken because I'm more interested in interplay between instruments and voice, and color, than in choral grandeur.
I'm trying out his 2008 WTC II. Not sure if it's comparably less deep or grand. Is that your opinion? Or do you think both compare unfavorably to his earlier output?
Honestly, I'm transported by both books so far.
Lately,
I've been feeling that the cembalo is a superior instrument for Bach. It's something to do with voicing. Piano tones don't melt together. They ring against each other. The methods of dealing with the tone aesthetic of the piano seems to require or encourage something else. I'm not sure what it is. It's the percussiveness and wetness. With Suzuki, the voices flow and compliment each other. With a great cembalo style and sound, the way of producing drama and depth and beauty is a little different. Piano can become tedious so easily. Some of the pianists, even Schiff, the more I listen the more tired I get. Whereas with Suzuki, Van Asperen, Verlet, the more I listen, the more I find is there. 

I'm sorry, I can't really expand it, because it's been some time since I last listened to Suzuki, and probably also because I'm not that much of an analytical listener to music. And I find it very difficult to elaborate my listening experiences. (What the h€ck am I actually doing here at GMG? )
And my point(s) about Suzuki are indeed a bit off-topic, since I mostly listen to his vocal and organ recordings. But, in general, I've been experiencing a slightly decreasing enthousiasm for his recordings during the last 2 decades.
I.c. the instruments: I feel the same way. But these are personal matters and preferences, of course.

[Traverso]

that has always been my understanding, but I wondered if there was some reason why he used the term cembalo ...

In France they say , "CLAVECIN " in the Netherlands "KLAVECIMBEL " CEMBALO is Italian