This has to be one of the most sumptuous CD releases I have ever
seen. In its limited edition complete form, the jewel cases are
housed in fine quality book-shaped boxes, which also contain separate
volumes of the entire Well-Tempered Clavier, as far as is possible,
in facsimile form. It is of great value to be able to follow this
music in Bach’s own manuscript, though the reduction in size and
a certain amount of smudgy distortion of the notes on some pages
makes legibility sometimes less important than an impression of
the music’s flow. Those manuscripts which have been lost have
been set anew by Johannes Gebauer. In summary, these are objects
to be treasured, artefacts which go best with your collection
of boxed leather-bound antiques rather than jostling with your
hundreds of rattly plastic CD cases or lowly cardboard box sets.
My congratulations go to Celestial Harmonies for their sense of
design and taste.
So, on to the music. Both before and since Glenn Gould’s remarkable
recordings of these pieces we have of course had many recordings
of
The Well-Tempered Clavier, but few which have
made such a dramatic impression. Not everyone warms to Gould’s
highly individualist and often somewhat dry readings, but few
could deny the impact they have had over the years since their
release. As performances they are remarkable, but fall into their
own category and are therefore not really suitable for comparison.
I have lately been under the spell of Till Fellner’s Bach playing
on the ECM label, and look forward to adding Book II to his warmly
expressive recording of Book I. Where I would consider Fellner
over Woodward is in his shaping of phrases, consistently forming
arcs and circles which give each piece a marvellous sense of form.
Woodward is good at pointing out the counterpoint and has a fine
clarity of texture, but each individual theme has a different
character to Fellner’s detailed and alchemic melodic dissection
of each piece.
My own desert island choice for
The Well Tempered Clavier in
a complete edition has for many years been that with Sviatoslav
Richter, whose early 1970s recordings are still very much worth
having on RCA GD 60949, despite the dreadful cover art. His recordings
fit onto 4 CDs despite some remarkably slow tempi in some of these
pieces. The fact that Roger Woodward’s set has gone onto 5 discs
does not however indicate even more improbably slow performances.
If you look at the disc timings for Book II you will see that
they only miss fitting onto two discs by a whisker. Daniel Barenboim’s
recent WTC is also on 5 CDs, and it is in the nature of the concert
grand piano that some of this incredible music deserves a bit
of a linger, so I have no doubt we shall see more of this kind
of pattern in the future.
Remarks published on the Celestial Harmonies
website
naturally bring up Woodward’s release of the
Chromatic
Fantasy and Fugue BWV 903, and that commentators have acclaimed
his Bach as “the most exciting since Glenn Gould.” This might
be true of BWV 903, but in a way I am glad that his approach to
the WTC is not quite so revolutionary. “His understanding of Bach
is minted by tradition and above all respectful, especially showing
such respect to those who set standards during the first century
of recording technology.” This is connected to an acceptance of
Bach’s structures as a given, and thereafter embarking on a search
for passion in music which is not essentially or overtly passionate
in the same way one would regard the emotional content of ‘romantic’
piano music. This is not to say that Woodward plays Bach in a
perversely romantic idiom, but that he allows romantic expression
to come through where it naturally exists in the music. This is
something I also hear in the spirit of Sviatoslav Richter’s playing
of these pieces. What I
do appreciate is that Woodward
has abandoned those rather aggressive and splashy trills in his
playing of these preludes and fugues. His ornamentation almost
always feels well placed and natural, and without overly spot-lit
emphasis.
I have to admit to being a little concerned on first impressions.
After a sturdy prelude, the first
Fugue in C major comes
across as rather forced. The theme is to my mind played too firmly
from the outset, so that when the other parts are involved it
has to shout to be heard. Compare this to Richter’s gentler, tender
rendering of this same fugue and you will hear what I mean. Richter
can make the leading voices sing more though his quieter textures,
and I find this a far more effective approach in this case. Woodward
seems to settle down after this however, and while he tends to
articulate with spoken words rather than lyrical lines this doesn’t
lead to discomfort. Take the
Prelude in C sharp, where
those wide interval figures are joined into more of a line than
Woodward, who places them more as a sequence – related, but less
than conjoined. Where Woodward has a great deal of strength is
in the rhythm of the faster fugues and preludes, lifting the collective
effect of the counterpoint beyond being just a row of notes or
a sequence of well shaped phrases into a whole which carries you
along on an irrepressible tide of incredible sound. Slower numbers,
such as the
Fugue in C sharp minor, have a more linear
feel, but again the lines are less ‘vocal’ than with Richter,
who somehow seems able to conjure a celestial choir at times.
Woodward is more pianistic in this regard, but in his way just
as involving and persuasive. The bounce and swing of the D major
prelude is like joy personified, and the stern frown he gives
us frequently lightens, though never quite to the extent of impish
fun. The infectious elation he communicates swells in your inner
being, but is less likely to give you a wink and a toothy grin.
There are plenty of magical highlights in Book I, and Woodward
doesn’t shy away from bringing out as much of the expressive potential
in the music as he can find, and Bach provides. The
Prelude
and Fugue in E flat/D sharp minor is a case in point, this
kind of music being given plenty of simple space in which to expand
its own narrative, the pianist lending it his own sense of poetry
without imposing strange mannerisms or quirks. While rarely straying
from the ‘middle of the road’, Roger Woodward manages to create
plenty of special atmosphere and individual character to these
pieces, and this is an aspect of these recordings which make them
last on repeated listening, the mind delighting in discovering
new things on each occasion, and unencumbered by a sense of impending
strangeness or wilful interpretation.
Reviewing
Sergey
Schepkin’s recording of Book II on the Ongaku label I outlined
some of the reasons I find Richter’s recording of the same music
marginally less satisfying than his Book I. I still wouldn’t want
to be without it, but Roger Woodward’s impressive approach bears
the kind of fruit which rivals all comers. The orchestral sound
of the first prelude bodes well for what is to come, and with
this session coming six months after the Book I recordings one
has the feeling that Woodward’s sense of freedom with this Hamburg
Steinway D has grown even more in the meantime. He maintains that
sense of narrative and conversational pianism whose lines are
more blurred in Richter’s playing, for instance in the lilting
lines of the
Prelude in C sharp major, the ‘vocal’ lines
peeking through, but more in a mention of their presence rather
than a full chorale announcement. The balance of leading voices
as opposed to countermelodies is closer with Woodward than Richter,
who frequently pulls back more on the lines which have a more
accompanying value. This is one of the ways Woodward pulls us
along on the crest of his pianistic wave, in a fugue such as that
in C sharp minor. Where Richter has us looking in several different
directions in rapid sequence or all at once, Woodward prefers
to integrate the lines and provide the music with a sense of mass
and flow which has its own drama and power. I have to admit to
being programmed to prefer the dotted rhythms Richter and other
players build into the end of the main theme of the D major prelude,
but you can look at the score in Woodward’s set and see that this
wasn’t the way he wrote it. Those dotted rhythms do integrate
well with the ones Bach writes into the countersubject, but life
is too short to pick nits on this kind of topic.
Once again, there are too many wonderful moments and movements
in this recording to list everything, and such things are in any
case subjective. You may not like the way Woodward builds the
D sharp minor prelude into a living, breathing entity which seems
to undergo demise and revival more than once; or you might not
want ever again to hear the way he turns the
Prelude in E major
into a piece at once innocent and sophisticated, simultaneously
limpidly flowing and crystal clear as the water flowing from a
high glacier. You might not, but I challenge your stony heart
not to melt when faced with such choice and immortal morsels.
He provides all the luminosity I would want to hear from the lovely
Prelude in F, and the fugue which follows is a real drink
on a stick – refreshing to all parts. Such is the music in Book
II of the
Well-Tempered Clavier, and Roger Woodward reinforces
all of my feelings about this as pure music, as well as making
it vibrant and alive and in some intangible way bringing it right
up to date – as music for now, not as a beautiful but extinct
fossil to be preserved under glass in a museum.
Even without these superb recordings, this release would be worth
the asking price just for the extensive two-part booklet notes
by Roger Woodward, “In Search of a Performance Practice”, and
those autograph facsimiles of both Books. These are the kinds
of CD releases which you feel you should bequeath separately in
your will, such is the feel of worth and value they have. Is Roger
Woodward’s well considered
Well-Tempered Clavier perfect?
I would dispute that there is any such thing, but nothing in this
recording has made me go ‘
?’ and most if not almost
all of it has been a case of just absorbing absolute and easy
splendour.
For the first time in nearly 30 years I am faced
with a conversion: the next time I am asked which recording of
this music I want to take with me onto my desert island, I won’t
instantly say Sviatoslav Richter, and I might not even mention
him at all.
Dominy Clements
Roger Woodward (piano) 
