J.S. BACH
The Well-Tempered Clavier Books I & II.
Bernard Roberts
(piano)
Nimbus NI 5608/11
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This boxed set can be characterised as a 'sensible' version of the 48 preludes
and fugues. That is not intended to be pejorative or patronising. Bernard
Roberts brings a lifetime's experience and thought to bear upon these
96 essential and diverse keyboard works, which every piano student has to
study, if only a selection of them. (I think of them as twice 48 because
at my school one or other of the 48 preludes was played often at morning
assembly, but my request to hear an occasional fugue was dismissed - the
music master thought them unsuitable for youngsters!)
This boxed set has a very readable, long essay by Wilfrid Mellers, who
suspects/assumes that there may be theological reasons for Bach's title,
'being well-tempered makes us good tempered and possibly pleases God'!
(A very different view is taken in the notes provided with Ralph Kirkpatrick's
account on clavichord). Discussion is never ending about the right way to
play them and what is the right instrument. Mellers reviews recordings on
harpsichord and piano by 'maverick geniuses' like Wanda Landowska, Rosalyn
Tureck and Glenn Gould, and contrasts their famous performances with modern
pianists like Bernard Roberts 'of exceptional intelligence and imagination
- - with a familiarity with restored or remodelled clavichords, harpsichords,
baroque organs and early fortepianos' who can embrace the virtues of
baroque instrments 'in subtly rewarding equivocations'.
The Preludes, which I came to know long before grappling with the fugues,
are wide ranging and embrace dance forms, toccatas and ornamented pieces
like operatic arias. I have enjoyed the experiment of programming a group
of them for CD listening apart from their fugues, which are also discussed
and characterised by Mellers in his invariably provocative and enlightening
manner. Armed with his commentary and the scores, these CDs offer hours of
rewarding listening, best taken, I suggest, about half a CD at a time, to
prevent the mind from wandering. In that fashion, they have been my holiday
morning listening for a week.
The performances are scrupulous in detail, with judicious minimal rubato
and careful variety of touch and articulation to ensure lucidity and maintain
expressivity above all. The recorded sound, from the Nimbus Concert Hall
(July to October 1998) is exemplary. There are of course many choices, and
I have reviewed the Archiv reissue of Book 1 on clavichord by
[Ralph
Kirkpatrick DG 463 601-2] which would go well as a companion for
this set. The other recent contender, highly praised (I have not heard it)
is by Angela Hewitt for Hyperion, replacing their recently deleted clavichord
version of all 48 (96) by Colin Tilney. Swings and roundabouts in the world
of CD marketing!
Reviewer
Peter Grahame Woolf
