Wolfgang Rübsam - J.S. Bach: Das Wohltemperierte Clavier (2023)

A renowned organist transfers his decades of experience as a Bach player to the harpsichord, for his first recording of The Well-Tempered Clavier.

‘I was surrounded by music as a child,’ recalls Wolfgang Rübsam, and he was thrilled when he could clamber up to the piano seat at the age of three to imitate the pupils of his parents, both of them music teachers. For the last 70 years and more, Rübsam has immersed himself in the world of the keyboard, and in the music of Bach in particular, making records first of all for Philips, then Naxos and latterly Brilliant Classics, all of them warmly welcomed for the fidelity of their style and the colours of their phrasing, whether played on harpsichord, organ or modern piano. At 76, Rübsam is undoubtedly one of the Bachians of our time, and yet until quite recently his long and distinguished discography has included no recording of the single most central collection to Bach’s output as a keyboard musician, the two volumes of preludes and fugues which he wrote both as a method of instruction for the budding keyboard player and as a library of his own mastery of the contrapuntal arts.

Rübsam’s chosen instrument for this recording is the lute-harpsichord: a unique keyboard instrument with a unique sound that Bach apparently cherished. It is more forceful than the clavichord but less brilliant than the conventional harpsichord, requiring a touch of its own. According to Fanfare magazine’s review of the set when originally released, ‘I thought I’d heard it all. I was mistaken, and never, on any instrument, have I encountered a take on these masterpieces that breathes such new life into them.’

This set is now widely available on CD for the first time, and joins Rübsam’s other recordings on the lute-harpsichord for Brilliant Classics, of music by Bach and Weiss, as well as a complete set of the organ works by Louis Vierne.