“One of the great interpreters of J. S. Bach,” was the New York Times’ description of the German organist and harpsichordist Helmut Walcha (1907-1991). His “intuitive grasp of the composer’s mind and intentions” was noted by The Guardian, while Gramophone judged that “his coherence and inner logic as a Bach interpreter remain unsurpassed.” Walcha’s recordings of Bach’s major solo keyboard works, performed on the harpsichord, are gathered together in this superb 13-CD collection.

The transcription on this CD was prepared by the eminent Polish-Jewish composer from Lvov, Józef Koffler, who arranged the Variations for a chamber orchestra (flute, oboe, English horn, bassoon and string quintet). This transcription, completely unknown until only recently, is undoubtedly one of the best 20th-century transcriptions of Bach's music.

John Paul makes the first ever recording of the complete Well Tempered Clavier, performed on Lautenwerck. The Lautenwerck, or lute harpsichord, is similar to a harpsichord, but it has gut strings, and this has a far more mellow sound. Bach himself owned a lautenwerck, and was very fond of the instrument. Bach's keyboard works were not written strictly for the harpsichord. He would doubtless have seen performance on The Well Tempered Clavier on the lautenwerck as being completely appropriate.

This fabulous five disc set is replete with some of those old Stokowski warhorses all recorded in absolutely mind boggling Phase 4 sound, overblown perhaps but astounding for its time. Decca's remastering is absolutely magnificent and the discs are jam packed with almost six hours of music. This is another fine memorial to a great conductor who remained astonishingly vital until the very end of his life.

Originally recorded for the small Music Masters label in the early '90s, this set of Bach's keyboard concertos was among a series of choice Music Masters items reissued by Nimbus late in the first decade of the 21st century. The Russians have never been known for Bach, but this is a solid traversal that can be recommended to anyone wanting to hear these concertos on a piano accompanied by modern instruments. Despite these forces, there is a good deal of influence from the British historical-instrument movement apparent here; the crisp string playing avoids any hint of Romantic sheen, and Feltsman is very subtle in his introduction of purely pianistic elements. The long notes in the slow movements tend to be just a bit more extended than would be possible on a harpsichord, and Feltsman thus creates a smooth, pearly texture that's quite lyrical. In several of the finales he pushes the tempo to high speeds, creating an entirely different effect on a piano that the music would have on a harpsichord.

Viktoria Mullova and Ottavio Dantone turn in smashing performances of Bach's six sonatas for violin and harpsichord, plus two additional items: a transcription of Trio Sonata No. 5 (for organ/clavichord) and the Sonata in G for Violin and Continuo BWV 1021. Bach's violin sonatas use the "church sonata" form; that is, they usually have opening slow movements and no quick movements modeled on dance forms. They are also unique in that they are in fact true duets between the right hand of the keyboard player and the violin, rather than solo works in which the violin sings while the harpsichord accompanies with the continuo part.

We can readily imagine with what modest pride the 40-year-old Bach presented his second wife Anna Magdalena with this most delightful of all domestic scrapbooks. Bach himself started it off for her with two of the keyboard Partitas (A minor, BWV827 and E minor, BWV930) which later formed part of the collection published as the composer's Op. 1 in 1731. Thereafter it was up to Anna Magdalena herself to choose and to enter little compositions which made particular appeal. Not all the music by any means is by her husband and there are pieces for example by Couperin, Bohm, Stolzel, Hasse and her stepson Carl Philipp Emanuel as well as several by anonymous composers.

Born within a couple of years of each other, Gottfried Silbermann and Johann Sebastian Bach were acquainted, and we know that Silbermann in 1736 invited the composer to inaugurate the new organ that he had built in Dresden’s Frauenkirche. That instrument was destroyed during the bombing of Dresden in 1945, but some thirty of Silbermann’s organs are still extant. From robust pedal stops providing a sturdy bass fundament to silvery flute stops, his instruments were famous for their distinctive&&& sound and contemporary sources often made use of a play on the name of their maker as they praised their ‘Silberklang’.

The talented organist and harpsichordist Maud Gratton is an artist constantly seeking perfection. A graduate of the Paris Conservatoire, she trained with such great masters as Pierre Hantaï (harpsichord) and Louis Robilliard (organ), as well as with Olivier Baumont, Blandine Rannou, Kenneth Weiss, Michel Bouvard, Olivier Latry, and Olivier Trachier.

Two years after releasing her CD dedicated to Book I of J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Céline Frisch now presents the second volume of this musical landmark. Bach compiled Book II in 1744, twenty-two years after Book I. It took until 1801 for both volumes to be printed: from then until the present day they have inspired countless composers. After a series of recordings with the Ensemble Zimmermann, an ensemble she cofounded with Pablo Valetti, Céline Frisch returns to her very favourite music, the harpsichord recital. Through these preludes and fugues, she reminds us that far from being technical exercises, the Well- Tempered Clavier is a work of pure pleasure and constant renewed discovery.

After the success of her Goldberg Variations and a disc devoted to Rameau’s harpsichord pieces, Céline Frisch, harpsichordist and co-founder of the Café Zimmermann ensemble, returns to the recital with a programme devoted entirely to Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. For this recording, Céline Frisch draws on her ‘bedside’ music. She thus reminds us that, beyond an exercise for advancing his technique (and we are well familiar with Bach’s strictness in this art), The Well-Tempered Clavier is also a work of pure pleasure, like a constant rediscovery: a landscape that one never tires of admiring.

"The trees are coming into leaf/Like something almost being said." Taking a cue from these lines of Philip Larkin, pianist Simone Dinnerstein casts her album of the music of J.S. Bach and Franz Schubert in poetic terms. Her understanding of the composers is summed up in her own words: "The music of Bach and Schubert share a distinctive quality, as if wordless voices were singing textless melodies." Of course, Bach and Schubert were masters of setting texts to profoundly expressive music, so it is fruitful to look for the lyrical impulse in their keyboard works and appropriate to find songful interpretations. Yet Dinnerstein doesn't merely serve up rhapsodic renditions or treat the music as some kind of tuneful vehicle for idiosyncratic or personal reveries. Her playing is quite in character for both composers, and her treatment of the material is far from self-indulgent.

Everything that could be desired in a historically informed performance of J.S. Bach's Brandenburg Concertos is presented in Philip Pickett's brilliant set with the New London Consort, released in 1993 on L'Oiseau Lyre. This version with period instruments and an ensemble of a size according to Baroque norms is much more than a dry run-through of these beloved works. It is a clever and highly expressive re-creation of Bach's most popular concertos, re-imagined through the artistic and philosophical connections and conventions that likely were found in them by Bach's contemporaries, most probably by Bach and the Margrave of Brandenburg himself.