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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Andrew Clements

Bach: Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 album review – robust and muscular

Masuto Suzuki
Projected with verve … Masuto Suzuki. Photograph: Marco Borggreve

This month BIS is releasing two discs of JS Bach’s keyboard works, both of them from members of the Suzuki family. One is a harpsichord version of The Art of Fugue, played by Masaaki Suzuki, founder of the Bach Collegium Japan and doyen of present-day Bach interpreters, while the other is this survey of the first volume of Bach’s 48 Preludes and Fugues, The Well-tempered Clavier, performed by Masaaki’s son, Masato.

It’s played on a modern harpsichord, a copy of a two-manual, 17th-century Flemish instrument with a robust and muscular sound. Much of Suzuki’s playing is robust and muscular too; tempi are generally on the fast side, while still allowing for generous expressive effects that just occasionally are a bit overdone, as in, it seems to me, the C sharp minor Prelude. But some of the other preludes can seem cluttered and rushed – the C minor, for instance. Generally it’s the fugues that are the more impressive: both the G major and A major are projected with wonderful verve and crispness, and really show Suzuki at his best.

Stream it on Apple Music (above) or on Spotify

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