J. S. Bach: Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II Cédric Pescia

• Johann Sebastian Bach: 1685 - 1750): Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II:
• 1 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium I C-Dur, BWV 870 02:44
• 2 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge I C-Dur, BWV 870 01:33
• 3 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium II C-Moll, BWV 871 02:12
• 4 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge II C-Moll, BWV 871 02:35
• 5 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium III Cis-Dur, BWV 872 01:40
• 6 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge III Cis-Dur, BWV 872 01:36
• 7 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium IV Cis-Moll, BWV 873 04:59
• 8 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge IV Cis-Moll, BWV 873 02:04
• 9 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium V D-Dur, BWV 874 04:47
• 10 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge V D-Dur, BWV 874 03:21
• 11 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium VI D-Moll, BWV 875 01:20
• 12 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge VI D-Moll, BWV 875 01:58
• 13 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium VII Es-Dur, BWV 876 02:57
• 14 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge VII Es-Dur, BWV 876 01:37
• 15 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium VIII Dis-Moll, BWV 877 03:35
• 16 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge VIII Dis-Moll, BWV 877 03:30
• 17 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium IX E-Dur, BWV 878 06:04
• 18 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge IX E-Dur, BWV 878 03:00
• 19 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium X E-Moll, BWV 879 03:21
• 20 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge X E-Moll, BWV 879 02:44
• 21 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium XI F-Dur, BWV 880 02:58
• 22 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge XI F-Dur, BWV 880 01:35
• 23 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium XII F-Moll, BWV 881 05:04
• 24 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge XII F-Moll, BWV 881 01:40
• 25 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium XIII Fis-Dur, BWV 882 03:32
• 26 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge XIII Fis-Dur, BWV 882 02:16
• 27 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium XIV S-Moll, BWV 883 03:50
• 28 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge XIV S-Moll, BWV 883 03:47
• 29 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium XV G-Dur, BWV 884 02:02
• 30 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge XV G-Dur, BWV 884 01:10
• 31 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium XVI G-Moll, BWV 885 03:35
• 32 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge XVI G-Moll, BWV 885 02:34
• 33 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium XVII As-Dur, BWV 886 03:56
• 34 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge XVII As-Dur, BWV 886 02:12
• 35 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium XVIII Gis-Moll, BWV 887 03:54
• 36 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge XVIII Gis-Moll, BWV 887 04:49
• 37 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium XIX A-Dur, BWV 888 01:49
• 38 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge XIX A-Dur, BWV 888 01:32
• 39 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium XX A-Moll, BWV 889 05:22
• 40 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge XX A-Moll, BWV 889 01:41
• 41 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium XXI B-Dur, BWV 890 08:00
• 42 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge XXI B-Dur, BWV 890 03:01
• 43 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium XXII B-Moll, BWV 891 04:03
• 44 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge XXII B-Moll, BWV 891 03:33
• 45 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium XXIII H-Dur, BWV 892 02:32
• 46 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge XXIII H-Dur, BWV 892 03:55
• 47 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Präludium XXIV H-Moll, BWV 893 01:59
• 48 Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II: Fuge XXIV H-Moll, BWV 893 01:46
• Total Runtime 02:25:44

Info for J. S. Bach: Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II

Robert Schumann, who revered Johann Sebastian Bach, recommended that young pianists should make the two books of ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’ their ‘daily bread’. The collection is indeed familiar to many from an early age but most performers (pianists, harpsichordists and even organists) only give it in concert and record it after ‘moulding’ that bread every day in the secrecy of their practice rooms.

Musicians tackle ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’ in the same way as actors play Shakespeare’s ‘Lear’ or singers perform Schubert’s ‘Winterreise’, once they have reached the appropriate age. The cycle is testing for the fingers but perhaps even more so for the brain: these stylistically differentiated preludes and complex fugues must be given an overall coherence that does not diminish the singularity of their parts. Each component of ‘The Well-Tempered Clavier’ can be one thing and its opposite.

This is precisely what the forty-two-year-old Swiss pianist Cédric Pescia demonstrates by setting out in a few moments an ‘acoustic theatre’. The sound is a beautifully lustrous bronze, profound, conducive to minute gradations of density, texture and articulation and the pedalling is subtle. The long fugues find in this noble but never haughty playing one of their most beautiful incarnations on the disc: the final fugue of the First Book, in the same tormented B minor as the ‘Kyrie’ of Bach’s great Mass, shows this with the blinding evidence that can be achieved only by the great artists.

Cédric Pescia, piano

Cédric Pescia
pianist of dual French and Swiss nationality, was born in Lausanne. He studied with Christian Favre at the Conservatoire de Musique in Lausanne, later with Dominique Merlet at the Conservatoire de Musique in Geneva where he earned a Premier Prix de Virtuosité with honors and completed his studies with Klaus Hellwig at the Universität der Künste in Berlin.

In addition he has studied with Pierre-Laurent Aimard, Daniel Barenboim, Henri Barda, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Ivan Klansky, Christian Zacharias, Ilan Gronich and with the Alban Berg Quartet. From 2003 until 2006 he was invited to attend the famous International Piano Academy, Lake Como (Italy) where he worked with Dimitri Bashkirov, Leon Fleisher, William Grant Naboré, Menahem Pressler, Andreas Staier and Fou Ts´ong.

Cédric Pescia was the brilliant First Prize Winner (Gold Medalist) at the 2002 Gina Bachauer International Artists Piano Competition in Salt Lake City (USA).

Concert tours have taken him throughout Europe, China, South America, North Africa and in the USA. He has performed at the Berlin Philharmonie, the Berlin Konzerthaus, the Hamburg Laieszhalle, the Mozarteum Salzburg, Carnegie Hall New York, Shanghai Oriental Arts Center, Wigmore Hall London, Tonhalle Zürich, Vienna Konzerthaus and has appeared in leading music festivals such as: Prague Spring Festival, Lucerne Festival, Menuhin Festival-Gstaad, Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, Sommets Musicaux de Gstaad, Davos Festival, Festival de Radio France et Montpellier, Les Muséiques Basel and Schubertiade Hohenems.

His orchestral appearances have been with the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, the Orchestre de Chambre de Lausanne, the Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, the Utah Symphony, the Festival Strings of Luzern, the Orchestra della Svizzera Italiana, the Ensemble Oriol Berlin, the Klassische Philharmonie Bonn, the Camerata Bern, the Basler Kammerorchester, the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie Saarbrücken Kaiserslautern, the Göttinger Symphonie Orchester and the Orchestre National de Lille.

In addition to his activities as a soloist, his love for chamber music regularly leads to performances with other eminent musicians. For many years Cédric Pescia has been working in close collaboration with violinist Nurit Stark.

He is founding member and artistic director of the Lausanne chamber music series Ensemble enScène.

In 2005 and 2007 he served as a jury member in the Clara Haskil Competition in Vevey.

He is giving master classes in the USA and in Europe, a.o. at the prestigious Accademia Pianistica Internazionale "Incontri col Maestro" in Imola, Italy.

In 2012 he was appointed professor for piano at the Haute Ecole de Musique de Genève.

In 2007, Cédric Pescia was honoured with the Prix Musique de la Fondation Vaudoise pour la culture. He was also a prizewinner at the Bourse de la Fondation Leenaards in Lausanne. The duo Nurit Stark (violin) and Cédric Pescia is supported by the Forberg-Schneider Foundation.

For Claves Records, AEON, La Dolce Volta, BIS, Genuin, he has recorded works by J. S. Bach, F. Couperin, Beethoven, Schubert, Schumann, Debussy, Busoni, Enescu, Messiaen, Cage, Suslin, Gubaidulina. These CDs have been acclaimed by the press.

Booklet for J. S. Bach: Das wohltemperierte Klavier, Buch II