Word: claviers
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BACH: THE WELL-TEMPERED CLAVIER, PART 1 (2 LPs; Archiv). "Clavier" means keyboard, and no one knows whether these preludes and fugues were written for harpsichord, organ or clavichord. Ralph Kirkpatrick is recording them on the clavichord, preferring its subtlety. Infinitely varied within their small compass, like snowflakes, the pieces have a severe fascination when played on the soft, monochromatic instrument. The late Wanda Landowska chose the harpsichord as her clavier, and her performances (RCA Victor) will be preferred by listeners who demand greater contrast and majesty...
...Weimar Bach found an artistic guide in the music of Vivaldi. For nine years he studiously copied Vivaldi violin concertos and arranged them for organ and clavier. He also wrote fugues based on themes by lesser Italian composers-Corelli, Legrenzi, Albinoni-and gained a fresh sense of line-the ability to say large things with an economy and clarity that his baroque predecessors had never been able to achieve...
...settled in Lakeville, Conn., with Elsa Schumicke and Denise Restout, who had been her constant companions for more than 25 years. There she concentrated on recording her interpretation of the old masters. Her recording of the 48 labyrinthine preludes and fugues of Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier is a modern classic. Landowska called it "my last will and testament." It was far from her last. At 76, but with the spirit of a sprite, the high priestess of the harpsichord turned once again to "my first love"-the piano, and to a second master-Mozart...
...absence of 20 years (she recorded Mozart's "Coronation" Concerto for the coronation of George VI in 1936). During part of that time she was engaged in her monumental harpsichord recording of the 48 rippling, finger-cracking preludes and fugues that constitute Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, which she called "my last will and testament." When she was persuaded to leave a codicil to that will, she turned again to the piano ("my first love") and to Mozart. She sighs: "Mozart was my first nature-but Bach, too. Oh, how can I combine these two gentlemen?" In making...
Thus prattled Paris' Francois Baschet, 36, an enterprising fellow who has been spending his nights inventing instruments to give the listener something new: "A cello with an echo, an instrument that sounds like the human voice, a piano that weeps-an infernal clavier. If I make 21st century instruments for the 20th century, tant...