Bach Das Wohltemperirte Klavier, Book 1

Record and Artist Details

Composer or Director: Johann Sebastian Bach, Harriet Cohen

Label: Biddulph

Media Format: CD or Download

Media Runtime: 77

Mastering:

Mono
ADD

Catalogue Number: LHW023

Tracks:

Composition Artist Credit
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: C, BWV846 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Harriet Cohen, Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: C minor, BWV847 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Harriet Cohen, Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: C sharp, BWV848 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Harriet Cohen, Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: C sharp minor, BWV849 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Harriet Cohen, Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: D, BWV850 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Harriet Cohen, Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: D minor, BWV851 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Harriet Cohen, Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: E flat, BWV852 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Harriet Cohen, Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: E flat minor/D sharp minor, BWV853 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Harriet Cohen, Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: E, BWV854 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Harriet Cohen, Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: E minor, BWV855 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Evlyn Howard Jones, Piano
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: F, BWV856 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Evlyn Howard Jones, Piano
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: F minor, BWV857 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Evlyn Howard Jones, Piano
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: F sharp, BWV858 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Evlyn Howard Jones, Piano
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: F sharp minor, BWV859 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Evlyn Howard Jones, Piano
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: G, BWV860 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Evlyn Howard Jones, Piano
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: G minor, BWV861 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Evlyn Howard Jones, Piano
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
(Das) Wohltemperierte Klavier, '(The) Well-Tempered Clavier, Movement: A flat, BWV862 Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Evlyn Howard Jones, Piano
Johann Sebastian Bach, Composer
Astonishing as it may seem to us today, it was not until 1928 that a complete recording of Book 1 of the 48 was planned; even so, it was never finished. Harriet Cohen recorded the sequence as far as the E major Prelude and Fugue; the following year Evlyn Howard Jones, her senior by nearly 20 years, took it as far as A flat major; the remainder were perhaps intended for Harold Samuel, but the project was abandoned on the merger of Columbia with HMV (forming EMI) in 1931.
Of the present two artists, there is little doubt who was the better Bach stylist and the more mature musician – Eugen d'Albert's pupil Evlyn Howard Jones, who was never as well known as Harriet Cohen but shows himself here to be a pianist of outstanding quality and intelligence, with a refined tonal subtlety and a developed sense of structure. His interpretations, well judged in matters of tempo, are free from the exaggerations and posturings of Cohen, who is acceptably clean-fingered in the faster movements (though she races the D minor Prelude) but adopts 'hunt the slipper' interpretations of the fugues (heavy-handedly 'bringing out the subject'), becomes swoonily sentimental in the C sharp minor (the end of its Fugue pulled about unmercifully), and behaves in the E flat minor Prelude like a tragedy queen. The recordings have been skilfully transferred with commendable fidelity, and only rarely does surface noise or rhythmic turntable beat obtrude. R1 '9507165'

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