30 Ways to Play the Well-Tempered Clavier

Today's post is about a 30-track playlist of music's most fascinating and intriguing work, The Well-Tempered Clavier composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. I chose 30 different recordings of this work made by 30 distinctive artists, and put every C Major prelude BWV 846 in this playlist. The result is great fun, you can listen to 30 different interpretations of this profoundly charming prelude in a row, or simple browse the artist names and pick up one complete recording of the WTC and listen to the full album.


Most of my favourite recordings are on Spotify now, Edwin Fischer, Glenn Gould, András Schiff, Till Fellner, Sviatoslav Richter, and Rosalyn Tureck. And in the progress of compiling this playlsit I found a truly great recording that was unknown to me, the complete WTC by Australian pianist Roger Woodward, here's a very informative blog post about him. Another stimulating recording is from Olli Mustonen, who mixed the Old Testament of piano literature with Shostakovich's 24 Prelude and Fugue Op. 87. The only important missing recordings of WTC I can think of are Pierre Hantai, Kenneth Gilbert and Angela Hewitt's. I hope Spotify makes a deal with Hyperion soon.

Here's the Spotify playlist: Well-Tempered Clavier (30 tracks, total time: to infinity and beyond). You can find lots of helpful reviews on these recordings here. And this video below clearly demonstrates the importance of interpreters in Bach's music:)