Bach Well Tempered Clavier

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 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.

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, earning more acclaim for his New Series recordings of the Goldberg Variations (2003) and the six Partitas (2009). Now, using his own Steinway, Schiff turns his focus to the 48 preludes and fugues of The Well-Tempered Clavier, making studio recordings in Lugano of both books for this 4-CD set.

Kenneth Gilbert's vital rhythmic sense and love of refinement are qualities which can be strongly felt throughout this set.

The extraordinary Russian pianist, Valery Afanassiev, studied the piano at the Moscow Conservatory with Emil Gilels and Yakov Zak. In 1968 (or 1969) he was prize-winner at the Bach Competition in Leipzig. In 1972 he was awarded the 1st prize at the Concours Reine Elisabeth (Queen Elizabeth) in Brussels, Belgium...

Samuel Feinberg (Piano, Composer, Arranger)
Born: May 26, 1890 - Odessa, Russia
Died: October 22, 1962 - Moscow, Russia

The eminent Russian pianist, pedagogue and composer, Samuel [Samuil] Feinberg, was born in Odessa and raised in Moscow. From an early age he exhibited an extraordinary talent on the piano. He enrolled in the Moscow Conservatory and studied piano with Alexander Goldenweiser. During his student years he took instruction in composition privately with Nikolai Zhilyayev...

Short Biography

Boris Zobin was born in 1976 in Leningrad (Saint Petersburg), Russia…
In 1997, Boris immigrated to Israel…
Nowdays Boris is teaching in Rehovot Municipal Conservatory.

From the Disk cover