Search - Johann Sebastian Bach, Glenn Gould :: Bach: Preludes & Fugues Nos. 17-24 from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1

"The B-side."

Sébastien Melmoth | Hôtel d'Alsace, PARIS | 04/01/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

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A new disc on the platter: the latest installment of Glenn Gould's recordings of Bach's keyboard work, The Well-Tempered Clavier. The B-side began with the Prelude in B-flat Major. This eccentric toccata amused him enormously, while the scintillating little Fugue which followed with its carefree dance-like character lifted him up to the clouds with the sun shining all around. Then came the meditative Prelude in B-flat Minor: ah--the purity, the mystery and the beauty; and the comfort. Gould playing that Bach was just like an old friend speaking; indeed, Gould himself was audible droning and humming in the background.

The Prelude ended on a sweet chord and then began the mighty five-voice B-flat Minor Fugue. Sitting on the floor in an upstairs room at the northwest corner, he could see the mellow rays of the setting sun through the boughs of the pecan trees. It was about five o'clock of a January evening. The day had been unseasonably warm and even now it was just pleasantly cool.

The great Fugue ended, and the uplifting, lilting little Prelude in B Major appropriately followed: it seemed a very cogent argument with its accompanying Fugue.

The last piece on this side was the Prelude & Fugue in B Minor. `Inexpressibly, irrepressibly excellent,' he said under his breath during the pause between tracks. The curious Prelude (a trio for two voices supported by a steadily moving bass), with its forward trotting rhythm, took him on a brief journey to a nebulous destination. It was in preparation for the unusual, ardently expressive chromatic Fugue in B Minor, the `crown of thorns'. Here Bach used all twelve notes of the scale in its vigourously modulating theme, boldly employing an harsh harmonic idiom with angular melodic lines which seemed like a trenchant condemnation until the relievedly sweet cadence appeared. It was touch-and-go; it was a near thing. And at the end, when the piece concluded on a chord of unutterably sweet and satisfying consonance, the muscles of his abdomen were rigid with intensity.

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