THE COMPLETE COLLECTED HARPSICHORD WORKS OF JS BACH Anthony Newman, harpsichord Harpsichord by Phillip Tyre There is no doubt in my mind that Bach's close friends called him Sebastian and not Johann, and that although he was famous in Leipsic, he had friendships not with the university types, but with those who were musical and artistic. The coterie that came to hear him play, improvise, and perform his written compositions, were these kinds of friends, together with a whole raft of students, all of whom admired him deeply and would probably have done anything for him. J.S. Bach is the Shakespeare of music, and possibly can be called the 'Father of Music.' In trying to assemble his collected works, I have listened to over 40 CDs that I have made of his harpsichord music in my 50-year career as performer on the harpsichord. This collection includes both books of the Well-Tempered Clavier S. 846*870 and 870-893, parts one and two, and three of the Clavier Uebung, the seven Toccatas, the English Suites and the six French Suites. For good measure I have included the Concerto in D minor s. 10582, but have not included assorted smaller pieces, which are not in collections. The other important works would be the large Fugue in A minor, a favorite of Franz Liszt, the Fantasia in C minor, the little Aria with variations in A minor, and the Capriccio on the Departure of a Beloved Brother. Within a year I intend to record these other pieces as well as smaller works which are not in collections, all of which will scarcely come to one CD. The first book of the Well-Tempered Clavier appears to have been written sometime around 1722. There are a few variants of some of these pieces and Bach was sufficiently interested in the idea of well0tempered tuning that he wrote a second book of 24 preludes and fugues sometime around 1743. Although the first collection is completely masterful, the second collection is even more so; Chopin declared that all compositional art could be derived from it. The six Partitas, published around 1731, S. 825-830, are perhaps his most masterful settings of the Baroque suite. They were actually glowingly reviewed in Matheson's Musical Lexicon, a contemporary source. The so0called English Suites, S. 806-811, hare harder to date, and of even larger scale than the Partitias, and are completely French in their style of writing. The six French Suites, S. 812-817, are of a much smaller scale, and are probably intended for a less ambitious player than the English suites. The seven Toccatas, S.911-916, come from an earlier time, in a style most likely influenced by J.J. Froberger. These show Bach as a youthful but masterful composer. The so-called Goldberg Variations, S. 986, are actually part 4 of the Clavieruebung. First published in 1742, the work was commissioned by Count Kaiserlink, a patron of Bach and of a young brilliant harpsichordist named Johann Gottlieb Goldberg. As the story goes, the Count suffered from insomnia and the variations were written as a kind of entertainment music to be played when the Russian Count was unable to sleep. Of the four recordings I have done of this great work, most recently on modern piano, I have chosen the penultimate version which is the last one on the harpsichord. Anthony Newman