Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier

The opening prelude offers a continuous pattern; the fugue that follows seems to admit several speakers into the same room. Richter’s Well-Tempered Clavier becomes approachable when you choose one line rather than try to account for every note. Follow the continuity of the sound, then the separate paths moving within it. Those are different kinds of attention.

Bach’s two books each contain twenty-four pairs of preludes and fugues, covering the major and minor keys. The complete collection therefore comprises forty-eight pairs, separated into ninety-six tracks in this edition. Richter plays a modern piano in studio recordings made in 1970 for Book I and in 1972–73 for Book II. The sessions belong to a different historical moment from the composition, and from the later digital release linked here.

A manageable unit

A prelude can establish a pattern or gesture; the following fugue lets a short theme enter through different melodic lines. These independent lines are called voices, even on a keyboard. If you always treat the highest notes as the melody, you can miss an entry lower down. Shift your attention when the theme returns. One pair is a satisfying listening unit; the next key offers another atmosphere within the same instrument.

A title with an open question

Well-tempered should not automatically be equated with the evenly spaced semitones of modern equal temperament. Scholars disagree about the tuning Bach intended. You need not resolve that question before hearing the collection’s passage through the keys. Nor must Richter’s piano impersonate an earlier keyboard instrument: listen to how lingering notes and independent lines coexist within this particular interpretation.

Return instead of rushing

The linked Musical Concepts reissue appeared in 2014 and is distinct from Richter’s complete Innsbruck concert cycle of 1973. Its roughly four and a half hours need not be heard at once. Try the first pair, then return to it while following the lower line. Familiar music can reveal another route when your attention changes. That repeated encounter matters more than treating the final track as a finishing line.