Sonata in D Minor, BWW 1003
Preludes BWW 939-943
Prelude BWW 999
Concerto in D Major, BWW 972
Toccata in E Minor, BWW 914
Partita in E Major, BWW 1006

Bach’s first biographer Forkel, writing 50 years after his death links Bach and the clavichord in categorical terms: “He liked best to play upon the clavichord; the harpsichord, though certainly susceptible of a very great variety of expression, had not soul enough for him, and the piano was in his lifetime too much in its infancy and still much too coarse to satisfy him. He therefore considered the clavichord as the best instrument for study, and, in general, for private musical entertainment. He found it the most convenient for the expression of his most refined thoughts, and did not believe it possible to produce from any harpsichord or pianoforte such a variety in the gradations of tone as on this instrument, which has, indeed, a soft tone, but is on a small scale extremely flexible.” The overwhelming evidence of sound, touch and emotion obtained when playing or listening to many of Bach’s keyboard works on the clavichord is sufficient to validate Forkel’s account. It confirms that the clavichord is fully able to express refined thoughts, and that it has quite enough soul to go around.

As Bach’s children grew up they naturally began to study with their father, learning the pieces he wrote for their instruction. The first of these ‘private journals’ was the Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, begun in 1720 for Bach’s eldest son; other examples include the Notenbüchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach and the Clavierbüchlein für Anna Magdalena Bach. Nine-year-old Wilhelm Friedemann copied out much of his Clavier-Büchlein, which includes his father’s added fingering, in his own hand. Of its 62 pieces of increasing difficulty, a number of which prefigure the preludes and fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier, five are included on the present album.

As his sons progressed, Bach wrote increasingly complex music for them, including the Inventions and Sinfonias, the French and English Suites, the Partitas and the Well-Tempered Clavier. It is intriguing to think that these works, now central to modern piano repertoire, were first and foremost pedagogical pieces, and that as such they would certainly have been played on the clavichord by Bach’s sons, as well as by his private students and the hundreds of boys he taught during his tenure at the Leipzig Thomasschule. The Partita in E major, originally for the violin and transcribed by Bach for lute or keyboard, and the Sonata in D minor, whose keyboard transcription is attributed to W.F. Bach, make a striking impression on the clavichord. Bach regularly arranged, transcribed and reused his own works as well as those of other composers. And as Agricola reported, “He often played (his Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin) on the clavichord, adding such harmonies as he found necessary.” Bach reused the first movement of the E major Partita as an ‘Organo obligato’ in the sinfonia of the Cantata “Wir danken dir, Gott, wir danken dir” (transcribing it into D major and adding trumpets, timpani and oboes!). Jovanka Marville, taking the tradition one step further, has discreetly added a few bass notes from the Cantata to the keyboard version heard here.