The Well-Tempered Clavier.

[BBMmk2]

You have high standards, Bbm. You don't like Mozart and Hewitt gets binned for one clipped note. I'd hate to bring you a cup of coffee at the wrong temperature.

Seriously, though, you might want to go back to Hewitt. She is not a clipper, in general, and usually plays the music with exceptional fidelity and an almost complete lack of mannerisms. If she did it, it was probably there in the music - unless she was exaggerating a dotted rhythm, as many do in baroque dance pieces.

I do rather, Waldo, being involved as I am with music making, health permitting. I will give her another go!

[silvestrione]

There ARE mannerisms in Angela Hewitt: you don't need to go further than the opening bars of the C major Prelude in Bk 2 to hear some.

I've kept her recording for reference (to have a recording of each to play, when I'm studying one), but it does not give me a lot of pleasure: a trifle bland at times (the D major Prelude Bk 2 should surely have much more umph!)

Then there's the instrument she uses. No, not piano versus harpsichord again, but...a Fazioli? Depends if you like them. Some of the bass notes remind of 'things that go bump in the night'.

I'm talking about the 2008 traversal, don't know the earlier one.

I'd go for Richter, on the piano, live if possible.

[gurnemanz]

I'd take Friedrich Gulda to the desert island. I have a few versions but he's the one I come back to. I just love the way he leads me through it. (Also Beethoven 32)

[kea]

In terms of piano versions I've always been satisfied with András Schiff's second recording on ECM, a bit less Beethovenised than his Decca traversal. You also can't go wrong with Edwin Fischer.

I gravitate much more to harpsichord versions but haven't yet found the "ideal" one: I like Weiss, Leonhardt & Asperen the most so far.

[richardfinegold]

Not this again........Doesn't it get boring?

[richardfinegold]

Sergey Schepkin, a Russian Pianist who is a Bach Specialist and has been teaching in New England, on the Ongaku label?
OP—do you have a streaming service? It’s a good way to audition different recordings

[Andy2112]

Thanks for the many suggestions everyone. Much appreciated. I seem to have caused, or restarted a kerfuffle on the harpsichord v piano (or synth) issue. I may well add a Harpsichord recording later but for now, authenticity aside, I will stick with piano and the Hyperion issue by Angela Hewitt on the basis of price and availability.

[BBMmk2]

Thanks for the many suggestions everyone. Much appreciated. I seem to have caused, or restarted a kerfuffle on the harpsichord v piano (or synth) issue. I may well add a Harpsichord recording later but for now, authenticity aside, I will stick with piano and the Hyperion issue by Angela Hewitt on the basis of price and availability.

Don’t be put off by the clipped note in one of the P’s. & F’s

[waldo]

There ARE mannerisms in Angela Hewitt: you don't need to go further than the opening bars of the C major Prelude in Bk 2 to hear some......

Yes, of course there are - it wasn't really what I meant to say. I suppose what I did mean was that she strikes me as the sort of pianist who can give a good reason for everything she does.

As I said, I am not convinced by the "expressivity" of that later recording. It sounded a bit forced to me and not really in keeping with her natural style.........though I don't remember the piano being that bad. I'll have another listen this week.

[Quarky]

As an interested onlooker, with absolutely no locus standi, I'm just wondering how different Bach's keyboard compositions might have been, if he had been in possession of a pianoforte.

I guess that's a legitimate question, as performance on a piano is preferred by many.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

As an interested onlooker, with absolutely no locus standi, I'm just wondering how different Bach's keyboard compositions might have been, if he had been in possession of a pianoforte.
I guess that's a legitimate question, as performance on a piano is preferred by many.

I would imagine that they'd be as different as his "Harpsichord" works are from his Organ works.

He'd certainly have exploited the greater compass of the instrument, and the pedals (especially if he'd had access to the Broadwood or Graf instruments available to Beethoven in his later years); the Bach "style" would be no different, but the Music would take the capacities and limitations of the later instrument(s) into account.

[kea]

It's believed by some scholars that Bach wrote this piece shortly after being exposed to & maybe buying? a piano (I think one of the Silbermann fortepianos). I can't find a performance that uses the kind of piano Bach would have been familiar with, though.

[Bryn]

It's believed by some scholars that Bach wrote this piece shortly after being exposed to & maybe buying? a piano (I think one of the Silbermann fortepianos). I can't find a performance that uses the kind of piano Bach would have been familiar with, though.

Hmm, but no dynamic indications in the first edition to suggest he wanted to exploit this essential aspect of the new instrument. However, was it not the Ricercar in three parts which is held by some to have been composed with the Silbermann instrument in mind?

[BBMmk2]

This reminds me of the reason(s) why Bach composed Die Kunst der Fugue.

[silvestrione]

I think it was Wilfrid Mellers who suggested they were written for 'keyboards' ( to use a modern expression!), i.e. some with clavichord in mind, some with harpsichord, some with chamber organ. Possibly some with the latest keyboard instrument in mind, too, though hard to establish. But, this would explain a piece like the F Major Prelude in Bk 2, with it sequences of sustained notes, which would work well on the organ, The sustained melody in the E Minor Prelude, Bk 1, is hard to bring off on a plucked instrument. And so on.

Robert Levin took up this idea, with a recording that used harpsichord, organ, and fortepiano,(and perhaps clavichord?) depending on which instrument he thought appropriate for each piece. I did not keep them, however, as his choice of organ, and organ-playing were ghastly in my view, and I did not get on with the playing generally.

I think it highly likely Bach wrote the pieces for keyboard, the keyboard player, not worrying too much which instrument said player was going to use. So I do tend to try to play them, rather than to listen to them. (Yes, some are too hard for me!)