The 48

[Bryn]

I seem to remember that there was also a harpsichord version on Archiv by Helmut Walcha some time back in the late 70s...but I don't think it ever made it to CD.

Archiv? I have his EMI set:

[MickyD]

Interesting Bryn...I didn't know of the EMI one, but he definitely had one released on Archiv, and I think he was using a Ruckers instrument.

[John Shelton]

Interesting Bryn...I didn't know of the EMI one, but he definitely had one released on Archiv, and I think he was using a Ruckers instrument.

Here it is http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/ca...sentation=flow

(they used the same image for the cover of a Kenneth Gilbert disc of early Bach harpsichord works, IIRC).

[Thropplenoggin]

Evgeny Koroliov. Why? Great use of dynamics, involving, fluid, luminous, pellucid...neither dry-as-bones detached and intellectual nor overly-romanticised. Just pure and emotional when it needs to be.

I've just ordered Book One from the Amazon Marketplace for about a tenner.

You can sample both books in their entirety on YouTube here. Here's the first from Book One to give you a taster:

Oh, and he plays so fast you can't even see his hands move

[MickyD]

Here it is http://www.deutschegrammophon.com/ca...sentation=flow

(they used the same image for the cover of a Kenneth Gilbert disc of early Bach harpsichord works, IIRC).

Thanks very much...I was certain I hadn't imagined it!

[VodkaDilc]

Till Fellner on ECM. Book 1 is marvellous; I'm not sure if he's recorded Book 2.

I love playing them and listening to them on the piano. Harpsichords always put me in mind of Beecham's quote.

[Black Swan]

I have the older Schiff on Decca as well as Angela Hewitt. I am happy with both. And I am one of those likes Bach on the piano.

John

[Aubade]

Till Fellner on ECM. Book 1 is marvellous; I'm not sure if he's recorded Book 2.

I'm with VodkaDilc. I have grown up with the 48 and have Fischer, Gould (which I abhor), first set from Schiff. I have heard many other pianists over the years but my first and last love was Rosalyn Tureck until I got the Fellner.

Tureck never felt the need to hit the notes in the approved Lets-Play-Bach manner (Schiff and Hewitt first set from each). She never strove for effect with tempo (Fischer and Gould), dynamics (apart from one particularly endearing inegal waltz time prelude), or daft phrasing (Gould), she just let the music happen. She was on the other side of a Segovia record when I was a kid and has been the touchstone for all versions since.

I haven't heard more than the odd track from Hewitt's second set but I have liked what I've heard and am tempted. I have enjoyed some lovely touch playing from Nikolayeva who belongs to no recognisable tradition at all.

And then the Fellner. The most exciting 24 (don't think he has done the second book) I've come across. Not conventional but it respects Bach and still makes me gasp several years on.

[John Shelton]

If anyone should wish to sample Blandine Verlet's recording of Book I, played on a Ruckers harpsichord* (a recording I am very fond of) it's on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivTGE_AFl40

*With apologies to sensitive pianophiles .

[DoctorT]

I see that this is CDR's Recording of the Week. Looking forward to hearimg more of it. (No doubt Waldhorn will be having a cup of tea by then!)

[Tony Halstead]

I see that this is CDR's Recording of the Week. Looking forward to hearimg more of it. (No doubt Waldhorn will be having a cup of tea by then!)

I don't understand your reference to my tea-drinking...

[Nick Armstrong]

I don't understand your reference to my tea-drinking...

I suppose he means having a cup of tea as opposed to listening to the radio - given your antipathy to piano-based Bach.

Though why DoctorT believes tea-drinking and radio-listening can't happen at the same time escapes me...

[amateur51]

Many thanks to those who have guided me to recordings by Blandine Verlet and Till Felner on youtube where the first boook is available from each in full - what riches!

I have long treasured the memory of hearing the Russian pianist Konstantin Lifschitz playing Book One and Book Two on separate New Year's Eves at Wigmore Hall. I see that he has recorded them on DVD.

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/VAI/DVDVAI4488

According to Presto's blurb: "In an interesting variation in performance practice, Konstantin Lifschitz combines the two books of the Well-Tempered Clavier by following each prelude and fugue from Book I with the corresponding prelude and fugue from Book II, thus keeping the key signatures together and creating a steady progression through the scale to the end of the series"

Am I alone in being surprised and intrigued by this?

[Thropplenoggin]

The sound quality on the Fellner YouTube video is a bit ropey. I have found this often happens with uploads - I expect people try to tweak the levels and boost the volume. I would hope the ECM disc is much higher quality.

[amateur51]

The sound quality on the Fellner YouTube video is a bit ropey. I have found this often happens with uploads - I expect people try to tweak the levels and boost the volume. I would hope the ECM disc is much higher quality.

Sorry to hear that, Thropple - I am blessed with ropey hearing (hearing deficit plus tinnitus since age 4) so it sounds fine to me

I rang St Mary's Audiology Department yesterday to tell them that I had broken one of my digital hearing aids ("it came off in my hand, guv") and to ask what should I do. I was told by the receptionist that I was due for a hearing reassessment anyway so she would send me a form which I should take to my GP who would sign it and then fax it back to the hospital and the hospital would send me an appointment - don't you just love a mature bureaucracy?

Mind you, it'll be wonderful to get my hearing aids back up to their full pomp What a marvellous albeit idiosyncratic service