Sechs Praeludien und Fugen für die Orgel Pedal und Manual / von Johann Sebastian Bach; für das Pianoforte zu zwei Händen gesetzt von Franz Liszt

The Associated Board of The Royal School of Music, London includes many of Bach’s works on their published practical examination list (2020-2021). This grading of difficulty is often seen as a reliable source of information when trying to judge the difficulty of the Well-Tempered Clavier pieces, amongst others. For example, Grade 8 Piano (the level just down from a Diploma), includes the ‘Prelude and Fugue’ in G (BWV 884) from the second book. No other works from the ‘Well-Tempered Clavier’ are included in the examination syllabus at earlier grades although other works from Bach are there. This is a glorious disc. Simply glorious. Anderszewski and Bach have long been congenial bedfellows and the Pole’s playing here is compelling on many different levels. To start with, there’s the sense of sharing the sheer physical thrill of Bach’s keyboard-writing. This is particularly evident in faster movements such as the fierce and brilliant fugal Gigue that concludes the Third Suite, or, in the E minor Fifth Suite, the extended fugal Prelude and the outer sections of its Passepied I. Common to all is a sense of being fleet but never breathless, with time enough for textures to tell... Harriet Smith Prelude and Fugue in D minor, BWV 851 [ commons]. Prelude also in WFB Klavierbüchlein, No. 16: Praeludium 3.Musically, the structural regularities of the Well-Tempered Clavier encompass an extraordinarily wide range of styles, more so than most pieces in the literature. [ citation needed] The preludes are formally free, although many of them exhibit typical Baroque melodic forms, often coupled to an extended free coda (e.g. Book 1 preludes in C minor, D major, and B ♭ major). The preludes are also notable for their odd or irregular numbers of measures, in terms of both the phrases and the total number of measures in a given prelude. Performing in Leipzig's Gewandhaus, Schiff received a standing ovation for his latest Bach interpretation. He was subsequently awarded the Bach Medal of the City of Leipzig for his cultivation of Bach's works. Werner Güra’s narration takes a little time to warm up but by Part 2 he is in full swing with both unequivocal delivery and an impressive bravura in the unwieldy “Frohe Hirten”. Gerald Finley sings with open-hearted zeal and, despite occasional flatness, teams up touchingly with Schäfer in “Herr, dein Mitleid”. There is the odd rough edge and, inevitably, there are moments which will not be to everyone’s taste. But the unforced sweep of grandeur, complementing supple pastoral mosaics, marks out Harnoncourt’s Christmas Oratorio as a valuable and penetrating seasonal vision... Jonathan Freeman-Attwood The City Halls are a ten minute walk from either Buchanan Street Subway Station or St Enoch’s Subway Station (on Argyle Street), as well as both Queen Street and Central Railway Stations for overground services. There are also numerous bus services nearby – for further information visit Traveline Scotland.

Lehman, Bradley (November 2005). "The 'Bach Temperament' and the Clavichord". Clavichord International. Vol.9, no.2. Clarity of texture is one of this recording’s most glorious virtues, offering a view of the contrapuntal wonders of the music that has not always been available. This is particularly striking in the potentially murky, homogeneous textures of Nos 3 and 6; but the other, more colourfully scored concertos are just as lucidly done – a triumph of the balancer’s art, obviously, but surely just as much a result of clear-headed thinking on the part of the performers. Equally enlivening is a tight attention to articulative detail and tasteful ornamentation which keeps the music buoyant and forward-moving at all times... Lindsay Kemp Prelude and Fugue in E major, BWV 854 [ commons]. Prelude also in WFB Klavierbüchlein, No. 19: Praeludium 6. time, which gives rise to two performance issues: if the dotted quaver and semiquaver pairs should be played at the same time as the triplet quavers (such as in bar 10); where most commentators think they should be, and if the quavers in bar 2 should be played as triplets; where most commentators think they should not be. [2] Informed by the spikier sound of the harpsichord, Schiff avoids the temptation to smudge Bach’s textures with the piano’s sustaining pedal. Instead, thanks to his impeccable technique and instinctive grasp of the music’s architecture, he floats the sound, spinning cantabile melodies with the fingers alone (and with a little help from ECM’s glossy recording). Contrapuntal lines are sharply etched, so that even the most highly wrought fugues sound transparent as cut glass.Levit’s Goldberg Variations range themselves more naturally alongside the patrician intelligence of a Perahia than with the sui generis extremes of a Glenn Gould. At times Perahia’s imagination in repeats arguably betokens a fraction more wisdom. But such fine nuances only emerge in the dutiful process of comparison, rather than in the wholly absorbing experience of Levit traversing another musical peak. Top-notch recording quality, too. If a finer piano recording comes my way this year I shall be delighted, but frankly also astonished... David Fanning Palisca, Claude V. (2001). "Vincenzo Galilei". In Sadie, Stanley; Tyrrell, John (eds.). The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (2nded.). London: Macmillan Publishers. ISBN 978-1-56159-239-5. ‎ Köchel, Ludwig Ritter von (1862). Chronologisch-thematisches Verzeichniss sämmtlicher Tonwerke Wolfgang Amade Mozart's (in German). Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel. OCLC 3309798. Alt URL, No. 405, pp. 328–329