Customer Reviews

Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Hyperion Records issued this complete 4-CD set for Hewitt's 2007/08 "Bach World Tour" (bachworldtour). The original performances here (WTC-I, WTC-II) were recorded in 1998/99 and still set a high mark for contemporary recordings of Bach's 48. Its largely what put Angela on the music map back then. Small bonus: the splashy cover art (with her gorgeous Fazioli piano) is certainly more colorful than the rather mundane original graphics. Such monumental music and high-caliber performances make this collection a solid investment for the classical music collector - or anyone interested in the timeless art of J.S. Bach whose Well-Tempered Clavier is in the great pantheon of keyboard music. Compositions - 5 stars; Performances - 5 stars; Sound - 4 stars. More detailed reviews can be seen on the pages for the original two-set issues.

PS: In Spring '09, Hyperion released a new recording of the 48 from Hewitt's '08 tour period. According to the artist, the foundations of her interpretations are largely the same now as then - but her phrasing, distinguishing of parts and rhythmic drive have developed in their sophistication and technique from playing Bach for the last ten years. Also, the sound quality should be a notch higher with the latest recording technology. Also part of the Bach Tour is a masters-class DVD ("Bach Performance on Piano").

I never tire of Bach's preludes and fugues; they provide constant stimulation for the brain whilst opening up the beart. This set has real balance and provides a wonderful contrast to Gould's wildly eccentric set. Warmly recommended

Angela Hewitt is a star - the Well Tempered Klavier Book I and II are complete and wonderful She has amazing phrasing and technique. She brings out every voice involved with such clarity and yet the summation is so much greater than the parts. This is one of my all time favorite Bach compositions.

...and even worse, it's repeated on the four individual cardboard sleeves inside. I'm sure I've seen worse covers, but I can't actually remember when.

However, by opening the box and its contents face down, so that I don't have to look at this particular bit of silliness (hopefully the deviser thereof has since been taken out and shot), and then bunging the disc in the machine and hitting the play button - magic! Ms Hewitt may never make the supermodel stakes in cheesy covers, but by gosh she does when the fingers tinkle the ivories. Suddenly you forget the stupid covers and disappear into the world of the genius that was and is J.S. Bach. The WTC is one of the great achievements of the keyboard, and Ms. Hewitt makes it dance and sing and jump for joy, but without overromanticising it in any way. You (well, OK, I) find yourself moaning along and singing and waving your hands in the air and tapping your feet.

Purists will (correctly) point out that this was written for the harpsichord, so playing on a modern piano is inappropriate. However, I am no purist, and if a modern artist on a modern instrument can make an 18th century composer speak to us today, then s/he has my vote. What would J.S. have thought? I bet he'd have loved it. Of course, given a modern Steinway, he, one of the greatest keyboardists of his time, would have written extraordinary things and not the WTC we now know.

To my admittedly untutored ears, Ms. Hewitt communicates Herr Bach brilliantly. To me, it simply SOUNDS right. I recommend it.

This criticizes it is good for BACH'S work played by Angela Weitt: Perfect tempos, perfect interpretation. wonderful cantabiles in the whole work, beautiful rubatos of a nonpareil sweetness. It is noticed that you inspires and the great GOULD. The quality of the sound is good but it should be better, Hyperion should be bought an apparatus of 24bits as harmoniamundi or sony.

The recording is not good, more or less a little resonant, bad timbre, but the rendering is the worst: a lot of piano pedal (awful for Bach), too much dynamics and agoge, many odd and stupid rendering ideas... An extremely shallow, trivial, and boring, rendition too. Someone could say that it isn't the sustaining pedal but the resonance of recording. But you can often hear, at the end of many peices, the typical noise when the pedal lifts and almost no sound after, and I can show for example a point in the middle of a peice in the middle of the first cd (I don't remeber now which peice, but I can find it if you want) where the music stops for a very little while and no sound remains. If you want play or listen on piano a correct Bach, also good or excellent, without too much artistic ambition (Glenn Gould), learn from Martha Argerich (or even, perhaps, from Dinu Lipatti). I'm very disappointed...

P.S.: Ah... Awful kitsch cover, not accidentally.