Pure DSD

The Art of the Fugue: J.S. Bach on Two Harpsichords [Pure DSD]

Gavin Black, George Hazelrigg

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Original Recording Format: DSD 128, DSD 256
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Bach on Two Harpsichords in Stereo Pure DSD 128 & DSD 256

For The Art of the Fugue: J.S. Bach on Two Harpsichords, the work is performed on two harpsichords. In each movement, the musical lines are shared essentially equally between Gavin Black, playing a two-manual German style harpsichord by Philip Tyre, and George Hazelrigg, playing a two-manual German style harpsichord by Keith Hill.

In the four-voice pieces, for example, each player (and thus each instrument) takes two of the voices. The use of two large harpsichords makes available dozens of different sound combinations, and permits the movements of The Art of the Fugue to be brought to life in a colorful and vivid manner.

The Art of the Fugue was remastered from the Original Stereo DSD 128 files. Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D Minor was recorded at Stereo DSD 256. The album is exclusively available in Pure DSD Stereo DSD 128 & DSD 256 at NativeDSD.

When J.S. Bach died in June of 1750 he left his great final work Die Kunst der Fuge – The Art of the Fugue – incomplete. The most striking manifestation of this is that the last movement of the work breaks off abruptly in the middle of a line. We do not know – there is no way to know – how Bach might have extended and completed it if he had lived. He also left us not knowing his intentions about the order of the movements and, perhaps most interestingly, not knowing on what instrument or combination of instruments he intended the work to be played. In fact we don’t know whether it would have been his intention to pin down a particular mode of performance at all.


Gavin Black, Harpsichord
George Hazelrigg, Harpsichord

Tracklist

Please note that the below previews are loaded as 44.1 kHz / 16 bit.
1.
Contrapunctus I
02:36
2.
Contrapunctus II
02:49
3.
Contrapunctus III
03:16
4.
Contrapunctus IV
04:19
5.
Contrapunctus V
02:37
6.
Contrapunctus VI
04:28
7.
Contrapunctus VII
02:50
8.
Contrapunctus VIII
07:15
9.
Contrapunctus IX
03:11
10.
Contrapunctus X
04:19
11.
Contrapunctus XI
05:42
12.
Canon at the Octave
02:28
13.
Canon at the Twelfth
02:54
14.
Canon at the Tenth
05:33
15.
Canon in Augmentation
03:51
16.
Mirror Fugue in 3 vv - rect.
02:44
17.
Mirror Fugue in 3 vv - inv.
02:38
18.
Mirror Fugue in 4 vv - rect.
02:57
19.
Mirror Fugue in 4 vv - inv.
03:00
20.
Fugue for 3 subjects (inc.)
06:29
21.
Bonus Track - Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D Minor - Movement 1
06:32
22.
Bonus Track - Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D Minor - Movement 2
05:10

Total time: 01:27:38

Additional information

Label

SKU

OM07100H

Qualities

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Channels

Artists

,

Composers

Genres

,

Engineer & Producer

George Hazelrigg

Instruments

Original Recording Format

,

Recording Location

Cradle Valley Farm, Solebury, PA

Release DateAugust 16, 2024

Press reviews

Positive Feedback

Music on harpsichord is among my numberless guilty pleasures. And these instruments are magnificent. If you think of harpsichord as annoying and abrasive (that is, if you’re in Sir Thomas Beecham’s camp who famously described the harpsichord as sounding like “two skeletons copulating on a tin roof”), I encourage you to listen to this recording and gain a new respect for the musical magic that is a large harpsichord well played…

If you know the “Art of the Fugue” but have only heard it played on a single instrument, this two harpsichord performance may be an eye-opener for you. This rich complexity of sound that the two instrumentalists create as they each take on different voices makes for a very special journey down some otherwise familiar music.

Bonus Tracks 21 and 22 of “Chromatic Fantasia and Fugue in D Minor, Movements 2 and 2,” (recorded in DSD256 in 2021) is indeed a lovely bonus. I had to download the DSD256 version of the album to hear those newer Tracks 21 and 22 recordings in their DSD256 original form. And it is indeed a very special treat. The greater transparency that DSD256 delivers over DSD128 make this edition the preferred release for me.

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