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Schiff’s Very Well Tempered Clavier

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photo copy 2Bach entered my life, appropriately in Germany in 1973. My wife Ingrid and I were just married and moved everything we had (3 suitcases, leaving only books and records home) to Germany so she could study in Tübingen. We had almost no money but I have always been able to buy music somehow and for only a few marks I found myself listening over and over to several Brandenburg Concertos by Bach on a small cassette player that my friend Pete Mularchuk gave me as a wedding gift to play Knick games on (part 2 of his famous gift.)

Bach hooked me and he has never let go. As Shakespeare wrote of Cleopatra, ‘Age cannot whither, nor custom stale his infinite variety.’

rendering by Jan Jedlicka

rendering by Jan Jedlička

The profound pianist András Schiff has created quite a stir this past year with his recitals and his new CD release of the Well Tempered Clavier. Foolishly I missed him but have done a happy contrition by listening, rapt, to one Prelude and one Fugue each morning. Schiff has given us a new way, a prism, in which to listen anew. The Well Tempered Clavier is made up of two “books” and each book is composed of a prelude and fugue in each major and minor key, of which there are 24. So, each book begins in C major and ends in b minor. In Schiff’s imagination, and now in ours, he sees each key, the sound of each key, in a different color. Here is what he writes in his notes:

Let’s imagine that in the beginning there was innocence and therefore C major (all white keys) is white as snow.The last piece of both books is in b minor which is the key to death… This has to be pitch black. Between these two poles we have all the other colors, first the yellows, oranges and ochre … all the shades of blue … the greens … pinks and reds … browns … grey and finally black.

Of course, this is a very personal interpretation and each of you may have a different opinion. Nevertheless if some of us happen to believe that music is more than just a series of notes and sounds, then a little bit of fantasy is welcome.

With Bach, when you end, you begin.


Filed under: Music, Piano Tagged: Andras Schiff, Bach, Jan Jedlička, Well Tempered Clavier

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