Bach | Das Wohltemperierte Klavier

The first volume of "Das Wohltemperierte Klavier" (The Well-Tempered Clavier) is of key importance in the history of music. Everyone starts playing the instrument with Bach's individual preludes and fugues. The work is canonical in character.

The collection was created in 1722 for didactic purposes (sic!) and consists of 12 pairs: prelude and fugue, which means a virtuosic introduction followed by a polyphonic demonstration (the trick here is to combine several melodies simultaneously). It would seem that it is well studied theoretical music, and let's mention at once – it is not at the top of the "charts" of beginner pianists.

In fact, these didactic compositions received the shape of small closed impressions in the hands of the Leipzig cantor. One hundred years later Bach's idea inspired even Chopin in composing his etudes.

Performing the collection in one evening is a wonderful and extremely ambitious undertaking. Bach's preludes and fugues are dazzling due to the variety of styles: virtuoso, dance (e.g. sarabanda) or style, so to speak, deeply contemplative. Since 1933, when Ludwig Fischer was the first to record the collection, many of the most famous pianists have recorded and performed the whole (or at least volume I).

On Wednesday evening, Bach's compositions will be heard through the masterly performance of Ewa Pobłocka, an artist who beautifully fits in the Polish pianism school. Such a name guaranteed her the fifth prize at the International Chopin Piano Competition (and the prize for performing mazurkas in 1980). This outstanding Chopinist constantly develops, as evidenced by her fascination with the 20th century music (Panufnik, Lutosławski). This evening we will hear pieces by just the one composer, because – as the Professor says – "Bach can not be played offhand or mixed with other music”.