Bach: Das Wohltemperierte Klavier - Buch I (BWV 846 - 869)

Keith Jarrett made a bold decision when recording Johann Sebastian Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier for ECM by dividing it between instruments. For this traversal of Book I, he chooses his mainstay: the piano. Opening with the legendary Prelude and Fugue in C major (Glenn Gould’s recording of which was deployed into space on the Voyager Golden Record), and spinning from there a web of chromatic enchantment, Jarrett thoughtfully combines dexterity and simplicity. With muted joy, he toes the line between restraint and levity, humbly approaching the music from below rather than trying to dominate it from above.