The Well

If one reviews her earlier CD programmes and not least her last, very successful album “Grenzgänge”, it is striking that the works of Johann Sebastian Bach form a fixed point of reference for the pianist Alexandra Sostmann. Bach is almost always there. Therefore, it was only logical that she went into the studio to record a complete recording of one of his major works, the first part of the “Well-Tempered Clavier”, after an extensive and intensive study of the music.

“These are performances in which tempos, phrasing, articulation and the execution of ornaments are convincing,” wrote Gramophone of Jarrett’s first recorded account of The Well-Tempered Clavier. “Both instrument and performer serve as unobtrusive media through which the music emerges without enhancement.” In this live recording from Troy, New York, made in March 1987, just one month after his studio recording of the work, Keith Jarrett addresses the challenges of Bach’s great set of preludes and fugues once more. Part of the goal is transparency, to bring the listener closer to the composer. As Jarrett explained at the time: “The very direction of the lines, the moving lines of notes, are inherently expressive…When I play Bach, I hear almost the process of thought. Any colouration has nothing to do with this process.“