Piotr Anderszewski – Bach – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2 (Excerpts) (2021) [FLAC 24bit/96kHz]

Piotr Anderszewski takes a characteristically creative approach to Bach’s Das Wohltemperierte Klavier (The Well-tempered Clavier). Rather than recording all 48 of it’s 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.”

There is no hint of historically oriented performance here as pianist Piotr Anderszewski performs pieces, half of them to be exact from Book II of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 870-893, in a way that apparently no other keyboardist, modern or historical, has ever done. There are various surprises in Anderszewski’s interpretation, but the big one is that he departs from Bach’s published order. He is straightforward about what he is doing, asserting in the notes that “it seems to me that [the published order] is not one in which the pieces follow each other with an emotional, musical inevitability.” Anderszewski supplies his own ordering, which leaves the C major prelude and fugue (but not the C minor) at the beginning and the B major and minor pieces at the end. In between are pairs in fourth- and third-related keys, building toward a somberly slow Fugue in G sharp minor. The idea makes sense on its own terms, and Anderszewski could cite in his favor that some of these pieces were probably written much earlier than others and were roped by Bach into the final set; he didn’t sit down and write them out in sequence. Anderszewski’s execution is both rigorous and attractive. He perceives the works as “character pieces” and “realised the particular importance of giving each theme of each fugue a specific character.” These are carried through the fugues with impressive consistency and control. Throughout, Anderszewski keeps his piano to chamber dimensions, and the variety with the overall quiet dynamic levels becomes quite absorbing. The downside is that although Bach reworked his compositions in many ways, he never did so in anything like this way, and, with a composer as systematically minded as Bach, one hesitates to fool with basic structures. Taken on its terms, however, Anderszewski’s performance succeeds.

Tracklist

1. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C Major, BWV 870: I. Prelude
2. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 1 in C Major, BWV 870: II. Fugue
3. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 12 in F Minor, BWV 881: I. Prelude
4. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 12 in F Minor, BWV 881: II. Fugue
5. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 17 in A-Flat Major, BWV 886: I. Prelude
6. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 17 in A-Flat Major, BWV 886: II. Fugue
7. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 8 in D-Sharp Minor, BWV 877: I. Prelude
8. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 8 in D-Sharp Minor, BWV 877: II. Fugue
9. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 11 in F Major, BWV 880: I. Prelude
10. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 11 in F Major, BWV 880 II. Fugue
11. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 22 in B-Flat Minor, BWV 891: I. Prelude
12. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 22 in B-Flat Minor, BWV 891: II. Fugue
13. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 7 in E-Flat Major, BWV 876: I. Prelude
14. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 7 in E-Flat Major, BWV 876: II. Fugue
15. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 16 in G Minor, BWV 885: I. Prelude
16. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 16 in G Minor, BWV 885: II. Fugue
17. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 9 in E Major, BWV 878: I. Prelude
18. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 9 in E Major, BWV 878: II. Fugue
19. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 18 in G-Sharp Minor, BWV 887: I. Prelude
20. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 18 in G-Sharp Minor, BWV 887: II. Fugue
21. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 23 in B Major, BWV 892 I. Prelude
22. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 23 in B Major, BWV 892: II. Fugue
23. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 24 in B Minor, BWV 893: I. Prelude
24. Piotr Anderszewski – Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2, Prelude and Fugue No. 24 in B Minor, BWV 893: II. Fugue

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mqs.link_Pi0trAnderszewskiBachWellTemperedClavierB00k2Excerpts20212496.part1.rar
mqs.link_Pi0trAnderszewskiBachWellTemperedClavierB00k2Excerpts20212496.part2.rar
mqs.link_Pi0trAnderszewskiBachWellTemperedClavierB00k2Excerpts20212496.part3.rar

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