Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge (the Art of Fugue), Bwv 1080: The 1993 Sibelius Academy Recital, Helsinki

Her artistry in this Helsinki concert is consummate and her memory almost faultless. With a warmly lyrical opening, and a touch responding to the variegated requirements of the score, she makes... — BBC Music Magazine, June 2020, 5 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 28th Feb 2020
Catalogue No: FHR095
Label: First Hand
Length: 87 minutes

BBC Music Magazine

June 2020

Historical Choice

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Bach, J S: The Art of Fugue, BWV1080

Work length1:27:27

$22.00

$26.40

Tatyana Nikolayeva

Contrapunctus I (Live)

Track length4:28

$1.00

$1.20

Contrapunctus II (Live)

Track length3:26

$1.00

$1.20

Contrapunctus III (Live)

Track length2:53

$1.00

$1.20

Contrapunctus IV (Live)

Track length4:40

$1.00

$1.20

Canon alla ottava (Live)

Track length4:26

$1.00

$1.20

Contrapunctus V (Live)

Track length2:39

$1.00

$1.20

Contrapunctus VI à 4 in stylo francese (Live)

Track length5:23

$1.00

$1.20

Contrapunctus VII à 4 per augmentationem et diminutionem (Live)

Track length3:48

$1.00

$1.20

Canon alla duodecima in contrapunto alla quinta (Live)

Track length3:59

$1.00

$1.20

Contrapunctus VIII (Live)

Track length6:05

$1.00

$1.20

Contrapunctus IX à 4 alla duodecima (Live)

Track length3:03

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Contrapunctus X à 4 alla decima (Live)

Track length4:31

$1.00

$1.20

Contrapunctus XI à 4 (Live)

Track length6:40

$1.00

$1.20

Canon per augmentationem in contrario motu (Live)

Track length4:39

$1.00

$1.20

Canon alla decima in contrapunto alla terza (Live)

Track length4:15

$1.00

$1.20

Contrapunctus XIII à 3 in forma rectus (Live)

Track length2:40

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Contrapunctus XIII à 3 in forma inversus (Live)

Track length2:43

$1.00

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Contrapunctus XII à 4 in forma rectus (Live)

Track length3:02

$1.00

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Contrapunctus XII à 4 in forma inversus (Live)

Track length2:33

$1.00

$1.20

Fuga à 3 soggetti (Contrapunctus XIV) [Live]

Track length11:34

$3.00

$3.60

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The greatest Bach player of her generation, Russian pianist Tatyana Nikolayeva delivered this incredible live performance just a few months before her death. This recording is published for the first time on FHR, with the kind permission of the Tatyana Nikolayeva estate. This is one of the last recordings of Nikolayeva.

Although The Art of Fugue work was long thought to have been written on Bach's deathbed, recent research has shown that he was working on it during the early 1740s. The autograph from this time comprises fourteen movements (twelve fugues and two canons), but at the end of his life Bach revised the unpublished work adding two fugues and two canons. Engraving of the plates for publication began during the last months of Bach's life and he was able to proof read some of them albeit with failing eyesight. However, when the work was published at the end of 1751 Bach was already dead and the last fugue left incomplete.

In creating his The Art of Fugue Bach proved that he was master of the form but in the hands of a musically intuitive interpreter such as Tatyana Nikolayeva it becomes one of the masterpieces of a world genius.

Reviews

June 2020

Her artistry in this Helsinki concert is consummate and her memory almost faultless. With a warmly lyrical opening, and a touch responding to the variegated requirements of the score, she makes this long musical journey an intensely beguiling experience. The last note suggests an electric current suddenly switched off.

May 2020

This live performance from Helsinki’s Sibelius Academy dates from even near the end of her life – April 1993 – and the wisdom of a lifetime’s immersion in Bach is evident everywhere. Contrapunctus III sums up the clarity, imagination and mastery of her voice-leading, while the final, unfinished Contrapunctus XIV carries the weight of the world. No completion, the music just trails off.

Bach: Die Kunst der Fuge (the Art of Fugue), Bwv 1080

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