The Well Tempered Clavier

You can’t say A without saying B: pianist Marcel Worms took up the challenge, to record the second book after his double album with the complete first book of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier (2020). Bach completed the second book twenty years after the first, and in those two decades his composing has deepened even further. The Preludes have emancipated and are sometimes longer than the accompanying Fugues, the complexity of the music has increased, and the work as a whole is more abstract and spiritual. Add to that the length of the work (about half an hour longer than book I) and the assignment for the pianist is clear.

Hailed by Hans von Bülow as the “Old Testament” of music history, the Well-Tempered Clavier has been the object of a substantial amount of publications and research over the past three centuries. A detailed analysis would surpass the limits of a CD booklet and could not do justice to the work’s complexity: readers will thus excuse me for limiting myself to a few personal remarks.

After a recording of Book II of The Well-Tempered Clavier that earned unanimous acclaim from the press, Andreas Staier now gives us an equally poetic and flamboyant interpretation of the first book. At once architect and colourist, he constantly varies the atmospheres, unfolding an infinite palette of musical landscapes. Under his fingers, this immense cathedral in sound is revealed in all its thrilling diversity. An exhilarating experience!

The Iranian pianist, Ramin Bahrami, studied with Piero Rattalino at the conservatory “G. Verdi” in Milan, at the Accademia Pianistica “Incontri col Maestro” in Imola and with Wolfgang Bloser at the Hochschule für Musik in Stuttgart. He participated in master-courses with Alexis Weissenberg, András Schiff, Robert Levin and, in particular, with Rosalyn Tureck, the artist who, more than any other in the 20th century, popularized Bach’s works through her research and performances.