Luogo e data di registrazione		Cedernsaal, Schloß Kirchheim (Germany) - 1967
	Registrazione: live / studio		studio
	Recording Supervision		Dr. Alfred Krings | Dr. Kurt Hahn
	Engineer		Hubert Kübler
	Prima Edizione LP		Harmonia Mundi | HMS 30 850/52 | 3 LPs - durata 37' 02" - 45' 09" - 49' 33" | (p) 1968
	Edizione CD		Deutsche Harmonia Mundi | LC 00761 | GD 77012 | 2 CDs - durata 63' 22" - 72' 40" | (c) 1989 | ADD
	Cover Art		-
	Note		-

In 1730, seven years after he took on his new duties as Cantor of St. Thomas' in Leipzig, Johann Sebastan Bach wrote to his old friend Gerorg Erdmann in hopes of obtaining a position in Danzig. "I find," he complained, "that this appointment is by no means so advantageous as it was described to me, that many fees incidental to it are now stopped, that the town is very deat to live in, and that the authorities are very strange folks, with small love for music, so that I live under almost constant vexation, jealousy and persecution..." The outcome of the request was negative. Bach's difficulties did not abate during the following two decades, although the next few years proved relatively calm. His work consisted principally of training the Thomasschule boys for their singing duties in the town's main churches, conducting the choirs, playing the organ for services and providing the cantatas for Sundays. In addition he had to teach Latin to the boys, supply music and performances for funerals and civic occasions and train the Leipzig University Musical Sociaty. On his own he added to his income by testing out newly constructed organs, and, of course, he taught his own pupils. Recent research has shown that Bach's huge output of cantatas, comprising between three and five (many are lost) complete series for the ecclesiastical year, were largely produced before 1729. After that time work consisted to a great extent of adaptations of existing material. That included, as well, much of the music Bach supplied for the students' Collegium Musicum, an organization that absorbed the composer's interest from 1729 until the late 1730s. For reasons that have not yet benn ascertained, then, Bach's extraordinary flow of creativity dwindled considerably during the last two decades of his life. One can only speculate as to the cause. Assuredly he was as happy directing the Collegium Musicum as he was frustrated with his school and church duties. Between 1736-38 Bach became embroiled in a controversy with the new school rector about a question of authority over the students, and while this was in progress he was the subject of a scalthing written criticism by a former pupil. He was eventually vindicated in the school matter by the intercession of the ruler of Saxony, and his pupils stoutly defended him in print over the charge that his music was "turgid and confusinf." In 1735 the second part of his Clavierübung (the Italian Concerto and the French Overture) had been published; four years later part three (the German organ mass) was printed and in 1742 part four, the "Goldberg" Variations. Assembling his works, organizing, revising and gathering them into larger units seems to have begun to preoccupy Bach during these years. Also out of them we have a second volume of preludes and fugues in all tonalities, a grouping not specifically entitled The Well-Tempered Clavier by the composer but obviously intended to be a sequel to the work he had compiled in Cöthen in 1722. Equal temperament-that is, the system of tuning in which the octave is divided into 12 equal-parts - was advocated as early as 1636 by Marin Mersenne. Conservatism, however, held out for another 50 years in favor of a number of older tuning systems, of which mean-tone temperament (the interval of a third being divided into two equal whole steps) was one of the most favored. Mean-tone tuning, with its narrowed fifths and absolutely pure thirds, provided considerable color but caused pieces written in more than three sharps or two flats to sound terribly sour. Andreas Werckmeister began the push toward equal temperament in 1691 with a treatise, which was followed, over the next 30 years, by Johann David Heinichen's 1711 thoroughbass method, Johann Mattheson's 1719 Organistenprobe and, in 1722, Friedrich Suppig's Labyrinthus Musicus (published) and Johann Sebastian Bach's Das Wohltemperierte Klavier (unpublished). Aside from theoretical treatises, Bach undoubtedly had also been influenced by a number of other composers who went beyond the usual range of key signatures in their works - Froberger, Pachelbel and J. K. F. Fischer, among others. The Well-Tempered Clavier, though it was distributed only by hand copies, made quite an impact in the years following 1722. Pupils cherished the first collection of 24 preludes and fugues, and one admirer, Georg Andreas Sorge, an organist at Lobenstein, produced a similar volume in 1738. Yet equal temperament did not immediately take hold everywhere. Heinichen mentions in 1728 that one seldom finds music written in B and A-flat and practically never in F-Sharp and C-Sharp. We also know that Bach regularly twitted the renowned instrument builder Gottfried Silbermann about the way in which he tuned his organs: "You tune the organ in the manner you please, and I play the organ in the jey I please"; Bach then proceeded to toss off a piece in the key of A-flat, whose excruciantingly sour accidentals generally caused Silbermann to leave the church in embarrassment. Although 1744 is usually given as the completion date for Bach's second collection of 24 preludes and fugues (this date is given in one of the copies made by his pupil Johann Altnikol), it is possible that the work may have been finished as early as 1740. It is doubtful whether it was intended for publication, the expense being too great and the possibility of sales limited; in any case, part of Bach's method of teaching invariably involved the copying of his manuscripts by pupils, and this is how much of his music has come down to us today. Bach would also make copies for his various pupils, sometimes altering the text, revising and improving, so that many of the preludes and fugues of Book 2 have a considerable number of variants. Nor did Bach simply sit down to write a second collection; as with so many of his cantatas ans instrumental works from these years, he often used existing material, sometimes adding embellishments, changing rhythmic figurations and making more extensive movements out of shorter ones. The Prelude and Fugue in C, for instance, exists in three versions for each section; the earliest of these preludes can be dated back to 1725. Prelude No. 3 in C-sharp was revised and expanded from a C major original. The C-sharp minor Fugue, likewise, was first in C minor. Two previous versions exist for the D minor prelude, and for the Fugue No. 17 in A-Flat Bach adapted and enlarged a Fughetta in F. Finally, the Prelude and Fufue No. 15 in G has among several sources a prelude from one prelude and fughetta and the fugue from another. Overall, in comparison with the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2 has a greater variety of preludes in different forms. Fully 10 (as against only one in Book 1) are binary movements with repeats; there are dances (for instance, No. 8, an allemande), inventions (No. 10, a two-part; No. 19, a three-part), ariosos (Nos. 4 and 14) and concerto movements (Nos. 13 and 23). The fugues in general are also looser in form, more artistically conceived and often more involved with double counterpoint, although Bach allowed himself considerable freedom on occasion in matters of adding interludes and increasing the number of parts. Fifteen of the fugues are in three voices, nine of them in four (Book 1: one two-voice, 11 three-voice, 10 four-voice, and two five-voice). Moreover, those in C-sharp minor, A-flat, G-sharp minor and B are double fugues (that is, with two subjects rather than one), with No. 14 in F-sharp minor being a triple fugue. The rhythmic pattern of the gigue may be found in the fugues in C-sharp minor, F, G, G-sharp minor and B minor, and so far as thematic relationship between preludes and fugues is concerned, it is most readily apparent only in those in C minor, G-sharp minor, A, A minor, B-flat and B-flat minor. The Well-Tempered Clavier circulated in handwritten copies until the end of the 18th century, when both English and German publishers made plans to print it. Bach's own autograph did not turn up until 1896, having been owned by the daughter of the late-18th-century British Bach enthusiast Samuel Wesley and before her, by Muzio Clementi. Igor Kipnis (Victrola VICS-6125)