Bach Well Tempered

Bob van Asperen - Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier, Toccatas, Goldberg Variations [6CDs] (2012)

Bob van Asperen - Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier, Toccatas, Goldberg Variations [6CDs] (2012)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 2,61 Gb | Total time: 06:49:53 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Warner Classics | # 5099960251923 | Recorded: 1989-1991

Two mighty landmarks of Bach's keyboard canon. The Well-tempered Clavier and Goldberg Variation form the mainstay of this collection. A masterly interpreter of Baroque music, Bob van Asperen has been praised by Gramophone magazine for "secure technique, fastidious attention to detail, fine rhythmic sense and a feeling for gesture." Here he performs on a pair of treasured northern German harpsichords, both dating from the time of Bach himself.
Piotr Anderszewski - Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2 (Excerpts) (2021)

Piotr Anderszewski - Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2 (Excerpts) (2021)
WEB FLAC (tracks) - 219 Mb | MP3 CBR 320 kbps - 179 Mb | 01:18:04
Classical | Label: Warner Classics

Piotr Anderszewski takes a characteristically creative approach to Bach’s Das Wohltemperierte Klavier (The Well-tempered Clavier). Rather than recording all 48 of its prelude-and-fugue pairings, he has focused on 12 pairings from Book Two. “I decided to put the pieces together in a sequence of my own subjective choosing, based sometimes on key relationships, at other times on contrasts. The idea behind this specific order is to create a sense of drama that suggests a cycle: 12 characters conversing with one another, mirroring each other.” Anderszewski’s last Erato album of Bach prompted BBC Music Magazine to write: “For anyone who loves Bach (or the piano) … this life-enhancing disc is required listening.
Kenneth Gilbert - Johann Sebastian Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II (1984) 2CDs, Reissue 2003[Re-Up]

Kenneth Gilbert - J.S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II (1984) 2CDs, Reissue 2003
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 987 Mb | Scans included | Time: 02:24:50
Genre: Classical | Label: Archiv Produktion | # 474 546-2

Kenneth Gilbert's vital rhythmic sense and love of refinement are qualities which can be strongly felt throughout this set.
Piotr Anderszewski - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2 (Excerpts) (2021) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Piotr Anderszewski - Bach - Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2 (Excerpts) (2021) [Official Digital Download 24/96]
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/192 kHz | Front Cover | Time - 77:53 minutes | 2,63 GB
Classical | Label: Warner Classics, Official Digital Download

Piotr Anderszewski takes a characteristically creative approach to Bach's Das Wohltemperierte Klavier (The Well-tempered Clavier).
Andras Schiff - J.S. Bach: Well Tempered Clavier, Books 1 & 2 (2012) [Official Digital Download]

András Schiff - J.S. Bach: Das Wohltemperierte Clavier (2012)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44,1 kHz | Time - 244:17 minutes | 2,35 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Digital booklet

As a young pianist, András Schiff earned wide esteem for his 1980s recordings of the major keyboard works of J.S. Bach; in recent years, as part of his long-term relationship with ECM, he has gone back to Bach as a sage veteran…
Edwin Fischer - Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Books 1 & 2 by Edwin Fischer (2022) [Official Digital Download]

Edwin Fischer - Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Books 1 & 2 by Edwin Fischer (2022)
FLAC (tracks) 24-bit/44.10 kHz | Time - 03:56:45 | 2.0 GB
Studio Master, Official Digital Download | Artwork: Front cover

Edwin Fischer's recording of the '48' was the first by a pianist of the set, and probably remains the finest of all.
Fischer might have agreed with András Schiff that Bach is the 'most romantic of all composers', for his superfine musicianship seems to live and breathe in another world. His sonority is as ravishing as it's apt, never beautiful for its own sake, and graced with a pedal technique so subtle that it results in a light and shade, a subdued sparkle or pointed sense of repartee that eludes lesser artists. No matter what complexity Bach throws at him, Fischer resolves it with a disarming poise and limpidity. All this is a far cry from, say, Glenn Gould's egotism in the '48'. Fischer showed a deep humility before great art, making the singling out of one or another of his performances an impertinence.
Sviatoslav Richter - Johann Sebastian Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 (2011) 2CDs

Sviatoslav Richter - Johann Sebastian Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 (2011)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 502 Mb | Scans included | Time: 02:01:44
Genre: Classical | Label: Melodiya | # MEL CD 10 01848

This cycle of preludes and fugues composed by Johann Sebastian Bach ranks tremendously high in the world of music. It is not just one of the immortal masterpieces of the world music literature; it is an encyclopedia of polyphonic art, a handbook for life, and an inexhaustible source of delight. Sviatoslav Richter said, Whenever I set to the Well-Tempered Clavier, I always get consumed with a desire not to exclude any of the sides for the sake of one narrow and dogmatic position. I am confident that Bach can be played in different ways, with different articulation and different dynamics, as long as the whole is preserved and the performance is convincing.
Kenneth Gilbert - Johann Sebastian Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I (1984) 2CD [Reissue 2003]

Kenneth Gilbert - J.S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I (1984) 2CD [Reissue 2003]
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 748 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 256 Mb | Scans included
Genre: Classical | Label: Archiv Produktion | # 474 221-2 | Time: 01:51:00

Although not quite at the level of profundity of his teacher Gustav Leonhardt's recording, Kenneth Gilbert's 1983 recording of Book 1 of Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier does have a style and polish that Leonhardt's too often lacked. Thus, while Leonhardt goes further into some of the minor-key fugues to find intellectual and spiritual depths that Gilbert does not plumb, Gilbert's playing is so much more elegant and graceful than Leonhardt's that it is difficult to choose between them. For listeners who approach The Well-Tempered Clavier as a volume of virtuoso works whose success depends on the effortless refinement of the player, the Gilbert, with its superbly remastered sound, will be the one to get. For listeners who approach The Well-Tempered Clavier as a volume of prayers written as preludes and fugues, the Leonhardt will be preferable. Both are superb and both belong in any Bach collection.
Daniel Barenboim - Johann Sebastian Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier [5CDs] (2021)

Daniel Barenboim - Johann Sebastian Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier [5CDs] (2021)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue & Log) ~ 819 Mb | Total time: 04:51:58 | Scans included
Classical | Label: Warner Classics | # 9029510538 | Recorded: 2003, 2004

J. S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier Daniel Barenboim "Das Wohltemperierte Klavier is not only the sum of everything that has preceded it, it also points the way ahead." Daniel Barenboim sees Bach's encyclopaedic collection of 48 preludes and fugues, with it's dual traversal of all 24 keys, as a work of pivotal importance and epic stature. His interpretation elicited a rapturous response from Gramophone magazine: "There is no sense of received wisdom, only a vital act of recreation that captures Bach's masterpiece in all it's first glory and magnitude; no simple-minded notions of period style or strict parameters but a moving sense of music of a timeless veracity."
Maurizio Pollini - Johann Sebastian Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 (2009) 2CDs [Re-Up]

Maurizio Pollini - J.S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 (2009)
EAC | FLAC | Image (Cue&Log) ~ 386 Mb | Mp3 (CBR320) ~ 260 Mb | Scans included
Classical | Label: Deutsche Grammophon | # 0289 477 8078 GH2 | Time: 01:50:24

There's nothing at all wrong with Maurizio Pollini's 2009 performance of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1. The Italian pianist's intellectual lucidity, interpretive clarity, and technical virtuosity are apparent in every prelude and fugue, and his probing insights and penetrating analysis inform every note. However, there is almost nothing right with the sound quality of the recording. The piano sounds too distant, making it hard to hear precisely what Pollini is doing, but oddly, the ambient sound is too present, making every extraneous noise too loud. One should not hear the pedals being pressed and lifted, much less the clatter of the hammers and the twanging of the strings above the sound of the music. Worse yet, one can hear what sounds like every breath Pollini takes nearly as loudly as every note he plays. These are all grievous flaws that should have been eliminated, and their presence fatally undermines the brilliance of Pollini's performances. A reengineered version of these performances would be most welcome, but the present recording is so flawed that it virtually destroys Pollini's playing.