Phantasm - J.S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Consort – I - Only The Music

While it was the harpsichord for which Johann Sebastian Bach wrote his many non-sacred keyboard masterpieces, the fact that its strings are plucked rather than struck - meaning it's capable neither of sustaining notes nor of achieving dynamics (beyond increasing the number of notes being played at any one time) - means it's also an instrument with distinct expressive limitations. So it's interesting that although in general Bach's music has been transcribed countless times, it's been less common to rearrange the major keyboard works, beyond simply moving them onto a modern piano. Certainly it's a first for them to have been transcribed as they have here: backwards in time, and geographically sideways across the English Channel, to the viol consorts beloved of the English from Tudor times until around the 1680s when Bach himself was born. Phantasm's programme is drawn largely from the two Well-Tempered Clavier books, the Musical Offering and the Clavier-Übung III, and it's a feast of fresh expressive tricks and psychological insights, coupled with the fascination of suddenly hearing links between these great fugal German works and the British Fantasy form. Beautifully shaped, deftly articulated and warmly captured, it's no wonder Phantasm is already planning a second volume for 2021. I've given you the Prelude and Fugue No 22 from the Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1 and Kyrie, Gott heiliger Geist from Clavier-Übung III.