[ Aparté / 2 CD ]
Release Date: Friday 18 March 2016
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Recording The Well-tempered Clavier is a bit like climbing Everest, and we were waiting for this new recording by Christophe Rousset devoted to Book I. With modesty and rigour, he gives a very rich, varied interpretation of this monumental piece, revealing its secrets to us in a highly informative introductory text. Performed on the magnificent Ruckers harpsichord at the Château of Versailles, Nicolas Bartholomée's recording ideally reproduces the full flavour of this instrument.
"[Rousset's] is a grounded, incontestably considered reading, exuding a quiet, unflappable authority reminiscent of Gustav Leonhardt…he untangles Bach's protean polyphony with the informed illumination of a seasoned tour guide steeped in his subject…particularly compelling are the massive fugues in A minor and B minor, magisterial, and plotted with long-limbed structural sophistication" BBC Music