Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 2

Post date: Dec 27, 2017 10:0:49 PM

Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier

Bach's two books of Well-Tempered Clavier, or the 48 Preludes and Fugues, has long been held as one of the cornerstones of classical music—Mozart and Beethoven both studied them extensively. Each of the two books is practically an encyclopaedia of polyphonic composition techniques and also the different expressive qualities that can be coupled with those techniques. To be sure, such a collection would not have been intended to be played as a complete set in a concert, and indeed it is very rarely played as a complete set. However, once in a while, it is a pilgrimage worth undertaking, because there is always something profoundly spiritual hidden deep inside Bach's music; something that can only be experienced by immersing oneself into an endless stream of his music, such as the cycle of Preludes and Fugues.

Bringing the second book of the Preludes and Fugues to life will be pianist Stephen Hung. An MMus graduate of the Royal Academy of Music, Hung has played concerts featuring Bach's Art of Fugue—another encyclopaedic set of music—and other free-ranging works of Bach. He specialises in transcriptions and other less orthodox performance practices, including a project to re-create Glenn Gould's interpretation of the Two-Part and Three-Part Inventions performed in December 2016. This unorthodox outlook puts him in a unique position to mould the two hours of preludes and fugues into a memorable experience.

巴哈的《平均律》

巴哈的兩套《平均律》自莫扎特與貝多芬開始已被視為古典音樂的基石。這兩卷曲集合共有四十八首前奏與賦格曲，每一首都展現出不同的格調並用上了不同的寫作技巧，實際上是本賦格曲的百科全書。雖然巴哈寫《平均律》的時候沒有打算要演奏者把廿四首甚至是四十八首的前奏與賦格曲一口氣彈完，而現今亦很少有演奏者會這樣做，但這近於朝聖的做法是值得偶爾試試的；巴哈的音樂藏有一種靈性，平時聽一兩首的作品或許也會察覺得到，但當你整套整套聽，便可充份地感受到。

一套《平均律》有接近兩小時的音樂，而為聽眾奏活這兩小時的，是英國皇家音樂學院畢業的鋼琴家熊韋皓。熊氏是少數專門鑽研巴哈的鋼琴家，曾演出過多套巴哈的大作，如《賦格曲之技》及《二聲部、三聲部練習曲》；當中《二聲部、三聲部練習曲》的音樂會乃是特別以模仿傳奇鋼琴家格連．高德（Glenn Gould）為終旨。此外，熊氏亦有涉足管風琴及古鍵琴，曾編寫多首管風琴的前奏與賦格曲給鋼琴彈奏，並剛於2017年出版。