Bach: The Well-tempered Clavier, Book II - Peter Hill (2012)

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Bach: The Well-tempered Clavier, Book II - Peter Hill (2012)

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A recognised authority in 20th century and contemporary music, Peter Hill turns for the first time on disc to another of his lifelong preoccupations – the music of JS Bach. On this new recording, Hill brings his customary scholarly acumen and crystalline musical intelligence to bear on Book two of the ‘48’ - music of ‘unsurpassed inventiveness’.

Composer: Johann Sebastian Bach
Performer: Peter Hill

Reviews: For those not averse to hearing Bach performed on piano, Peter Hill’s new Delphian recording is well worth investigating. The pianist’s self-authored album note, in which he provides a narrative on each and every one of the 24 preludes and fugues, is a valuable acquisition in itself.


Heretofore, Hill has not been associated with Bach. His focus has been Read more The Well-Tempered Clavier , which seems a less probable place to start than Book 1. But Hill finds the preludes and fugues in Book 2, which, after all, were written some 16 years later, to be more formally advanced and weightier in musical thought or expression.


In part, it’s that greater complexity of Book 2 that has made it somewhat less accessible, more imponderable, perhaps, and therefore less popular than its companion Book 1. Hill’s approach, accordingly, seems to be one of analytical examination and deconstruction. This is not meant negatively, but rather comparatively to Angela Hewitt and Craig Sheppard, both of whom approach the music with a bit less seriousness and less inhibition. Theirs are readings of rather more flamboyant fun.


This is not to suggest that Hill’s fingers don’t fly just as fast through the D-Minor Prelude or that he doesn’t smile at the posthorn signals in the D-Major Prelude, but overall one has the sense that his effort is the result of painstaking scholarly research. I’m tempted to say that he does everything exactly right, sometimes at the expense of doing the right thing. The fugues, moreso than the preludes, can come across sounding somewhat studied and overly cautious, as in the F?-Minor Fugue where one can count with exactitude the number of curlicues in Bach’s tricky ornaments. At times, one wishes for just a bit more spontaneity, even if it’s at the risk of squiggling one time too many or too few.


Nonetheless, this is a masterly realization of the second volume of Bach’s WTC , one that, on its own terms, can stand among the best of them, and it has been beautifully recorded on a 2004 Steinway Model D in Cadiff’s University Concert Hall. Hill’s WTC won’t replace my favorite piano version, which I still think is Angela Hewitt’s, but it needn’t blush beside it.