The Galaxy Playlist

March 14th, 2005

Happy 320th, Johann!

I do enjoy celebrating birthdays, I admit. At the very least, it makes for easy program planning. But there are a few notable artists for whom I make a point of setting aside a night or two (or sometimes three) so that I can do something special. Johann Sebastian Bach is one of those artists, and we celebrate his 320th birthday this year (you gotta admit, he's pretty spry for a 320 year old man, eh?). The easiest way to explain it is to state that Bach is responsible for making western music what it is today. Not only was he a master of harmony and of composition, but he had a taste for writing music that was as educational as they were beautiful to listen to. In fact, a number of his greatest works were apparently designed to be teaching instruments.

Such is tonight's work, the Well-Tempered Clavier. The title makes it quite clear:

"The Well-tempered Clavier, or preludes and fugues through all the tones and semitones, both with the major third and Ut, Re, Mi and with the minor third or Re, Mi, Fa. For the use and practice of young musicians who desire to learn, as well as for the particular diversion of those who are already skilled in this study; made and composed by Johann Sebastian Bach, Kapellmeister for the time being to the Duke of Anhalt-Cothen and director of his chamber music, Anno Domini 1722."

Bach wrote so many masterworks of epic scale (The Art of the Fugue, the Goldberg Variations, St. Matthew's Passion, his Mass in B Minor, the Brandenburg Concertos, not to mention his numerous cantatas, organ pieces, keyboard pieces, organ works, and etc.) that it sometimes becomes difficult choosing which one I should play on a given night. But, for whatever reason, I have never been able to play a copy of the Wolltemperierte Klavier. Primarily, I've been holding out for when I could acquire matching copies of Books I and II, and that can be difficult sometimes. But this is an excellent rendition of the piece by Gustav Leonhardt, probably one of the great interpreters of baroque music of the 20th century (I have heard excellent renditions by him of various pieces by Handel, and also of Francois Couperin - a real eye-opener, believe me; also of Monteverdi), and probably one of the premier interpeters of Bach's music. So, although I can't present Book II, I can still go with what I have, and that's a pretty good one.