The Keyboard Music of Bach

Ha! Laibach!

In the eighties I sometimes had to listen to them, because a friend of mine quite liked their music.
To be honest: not exactly my cup of tea, although I preferred Leben heißt Leben to Live is life.

Concerning Die Kunst der Fuge: I prefer the harpsichord or organ.

But again: sometimes it's good fun listening to Laibach's version, f.i. the pouring rain in Contrapunctus 8.

 

As a matter of fact, the WTC is one of the least accessible entries to Bach's keyboard works. The French Suites, for instance, are much more melodic and caressing (except the first one: really dark and austere).

 

At risk of upsetting some people- I don't know if this has been pointed out before but Hyperion currently have the entire output of Angela hewitt playing bach keyboard pieces on piano. It goes for £60 for FLAC download but since you get 25% off anything over £59 this makes £45.
This is a fantastic bargain as it is the equivalent of 15 cds, all (or at least most) of which is either top recommendation or thereabouts in the Penguin Guide.
Course it's not a harpsichord

 

Someone recently added to youtube some video footage of a young Davitt Moroney at the harpsichord playing Bach. He plays, among other things, the prelude and fugue in f minor from book I of the WTC and the prelude and fugue in e major from book II of the WTC. The prelude and fugue in c major from book I are also there. (BWV numbers 857, 878, and 846 respectively)

 

It appears that Helmut Walcha's recording of the Partitas is coming back into print in April. I inserted the link but for some reason it wasn't working. Just go to amazon and the Partitas are in the list of recordings for Walcha. Be a little cautious, though, because Walcha's name isn't actually on the page for the Partitas. I guess it's possible that some other artist's recording got mixed in with the list of recordings for Walcha.

 

I found confirmation elsewhere that the recording is, indeed, Walcha's.

 

Thanks great for these links,I like it so much.