This album features Australian-American harpsichordist Peter Watchorn, backed up in various ways by other well-known figures in the American historical-performance movement (the instrument's tuning, of which more in a moment, is by Bradley Lehman and one of the producers is keyboardist Penelope Crawford). For that movement, the disc may mark a kind of watershed, for it applies arcane scholarship to produce a sound that will be rewarding and startling for general listeners. It may seem hard to create a genuinely novel ...
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This album features Australian-American harpsichordist Peter Watchorn, backed up in various ways by other well-known figures in the American historical-performance movement (the instrument's tuning, of which more in a moment, is by Bradley Lehman and one of the producers is keyboardist Penelope Crawford). For that movement, the disc may mark a kind of watershed, for it applies arcane scholarship to produce a sound that will be rewarding and startling for general listeners. It may seem hard to create a genuinely novel reading of the Well-Tempered Clavier, but Watchorn succeeds in doing so for Book 1 here (Book 2 will follow in a separate release, and unfortunately the booklet notes are confusing in the way they skip between the two bodies of music). Several aspects of the performance are unusual. First there is the use of a pedal harpsichord -- a harpsichord with a row of foot pedals that gives a lower register with a big, organ-like sound. One builder described the instrument as being "as elusive as...
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