Till Fellner J.S. BACH Das Wohltemperierte Klavier

In his ECM New Series debut, the insightful Austrian pianist Till Fellner sheds new light on the best-known of Johann Sebastian Bach’s works for clavier, the endlessly inventive collection of preludes and fugues often considered one of the sublime monuments of Western music. This is the music of which Goethe wrote, “It was as if the harmony of the ages were communing with itself, as it may have happened in God's bosom shortly before the creation of the world. So was I, too, moved in my inmost being… ."

“The Well-Tempered Clavier” has of course become one of the most frequently-played of Bach’s compositions and a work to which every classical pianist of distinction feels obliged to bring his or her interpretative perspective – particularly since Glenn Gould’s heyday.  Hearing Till Filner play Book One of “Das wohltemperierte Klavier” at the Salzburg Festival in 2000, ECM producer Manfred Eicher was struck by the selfless manner in which Till Fellner attempted to do the opposite. His focussed and intelligent phrasing eschewed all hint of mannerism: his technique was prodigious, but he was not inflicting anything extraneous upon the work, in fact he was resolute about keeping his own personality at bay while serving Bach’s.