Bach, J S: The Art of Fugue, BWV1080

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…what Aimard offers is perhaps one of the most intellectually rigorous piano versions available. No contrapuntal density defeats his forensic brain or articulate fingers. He does find lyricism... — BBC Music Magazine, February 2008, 4 out of 5 stars More…

Release Date: 21st Jan 2008
Catalogue No: 4777345
Label: Deutsche Grammophon
Length: 78 minutes

Gramophone Magazine

March 2008

Editor's Choice

Bach, J S: The Art of Fugue, BWV1080

Work length1:18:26

$22.00

$30.00

Pierre-Laurent Aimard (piano)
Recorded: 2007-09-22
Recording Venue: Wien, Konzerthaus, Mozartsaal

Contrapunctus No. 1

Track length3:01

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Contrapunctus No. 2

Track length2:38

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Contrapunctus No. 3

Track length3:10

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Contrapunctus No. 4

Track length3:04

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Contrapunctus No. 5

Track length3:06

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Contrapunctus No. 6 in Stylo Francese

Track length4:40

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Contrapunctus No. 7 per Augmentationem et Diminutionem

Track length4:09

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Contrapunctus No. 8

Track length7:00

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Contrapunctus No. 9 alla Duodecima

Track length2:18

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Contrapunctus No. 10 alla Decima

Track length3:44

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Contrapunctus No. 11

Track length7:04

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Contrapunctus inversus No. 12

Track length3:01

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Contrapunctus inversus No. 12b

Track length3:14

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Contrapunctus inversus No. 13a

Track length2:08

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Contrapunctus inversus No. 13b

Track length2:15

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No. 16 Canon alla Ottava

Track length2:19

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No. 17 Canon alla Decima in Contrappunto alla Terza

Track length4:16

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No. 18 Canon alla Duodecima in Contrappunto alla Quinta

Track length1:58

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No. 15 Canon per augmentationem in Contrario Motu

Track length8:03

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No. 20 Fuga a 3 Soggetti (Contrapunctus No. 14)

Track length7:18

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Reviews
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Reviews

February 2008

…what Aimard offers is perhaps one of the most intellectually rigorous piano versions available. No contrapuntal density defeats his forensic brain or articulate fingers. He does find lyricism and exhilaration, but there is an evenness of purpose which is both a strength... and a weakness when set against the pronounced poetry of Koroliov or MacGregor.

2010

This is Bach-playing to listen to every day, fresh, spry and well modulated. If spirituality is to be found in The Art of Fugue, Aimard seems to say, it will not be through slow tempi, dynamic extremes or the quasi-religious trappings arrayed by the likes of Sokolov, Kocsis, Koroliov and Nikolaieva. The tripping, French swagger of Contrapuncti 2 and 6 and the smart Italian cut of No 9 fit neatly under the fingers. Freedom is found within the interplay of voices rather than any fancy phrasing: in fact the mirror fugues and canons are so unfussily done that you'd never guess without a score to hand how much a single musician can look and sound like Mr Messy while playing them.
This is not to imply dryness or inflexibility on Aimard's part. He follows Tovey in finding No 3 to be 'one of Bach's most beautiful pieces of quiet chromatic slow music', after which the extraordinary cadences of No 4 are necessarily pedalled and clipped, even chirpy: the envoi of a true Kapellmeister. The great unfinished fugue is especially fascinating, gradually accumulating kinesis until the surge of B-A-C-H pulls us towards its unattained apotheosis with colossal force. Applied with more plain-spoken authority, such emphatic strength of wrist and will rather chews up the Tenth's preludial bars and the expansive, chorale-fantasia conclusion of the Fifth, though with equal force one senses that, in this case, they had to be so.
Perhaps no pianist since Charles Rosen has so persuasively demonstrated that this contrapuntal encyclopedia is to be heard as well as read.

March 2008

This is Bach-playing to listen to every day, Fresh, spry and well modulated. If spirituality is to be found in The Art of Fugue, Aimard seems to say, it will not be through slow tempi, dynamic extremes or the quasi-religious trappings… Perhaps no pianist since Charles Rosen has no persuasively demonstrated that this contrapuntal encyclopaedia is to be heard as well as read.

New York Times

Staggering technique, searching intellect and fantastical imagination

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Bach, J S: The Art of Fugue, BWV1080

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