The famous conductor Hans von Bülow, slightly less famous as a pianist now and nearly forgotten as a composer, remains most present to modern music lovers either as the jilted husband of Cosima von ...

Christophe Rousset, a remarkable harpsichordist and conductor who occupies a place of high honor among Baroque-music interpreters, scores a triumph with this magisterial reading of one of the ...

The preludes and fugues that make up Bach’s “Well-Tempered Clavier” operate on multiple levels at once — they’re a compilation of techniques for keyboard writing, a polemic on the subject of tuning ...

Accessibility of knowledge was crucial to the Enlightenment. That ethos was embodied in the celebrated Encyclopédie of Diderot and D’Alembert, the first of its seventeen volumes appearing in 1751, the ...

While listening to András Schiff’s new recording of J.S. Bach’s “The Well-Tempered Clavier” on headphones as I stared up into the crown of a maple tree, it suddenly struck me that listening to Bach is ...

I don’t think the scholars have yet argued that, among the ear-stretching range of moods and effects encompassed across these 24 pieces, comes a spooky anticipation of Seattle grunge. Listening to ...

Some 250 years after the death of Johann Sebastian Bach, four noted classical pianists tackle the composer's "The Well-Tempered Clavier," a collection of keyboard pieces often referred to as the "Old ...

Johann Sebastian Bach is to the world of classical music much as Leonardo da Vinci is to the world of art — both men reign as giants at the pinnacle of their respective fields. Bach, as did da Vinci, ...

I've just ended a year of playing Bach, and it was a no-nonsense deal. Like going hunting with your father-in-law. Every day started with a shouting match in my head. Stop! Intruder! Call the keyboard ...

When he was a boy, Andras Schiff labored over the tedious, repetitive finger studies that are universally loathed by aspiring pianists. He thought they were like spinach: yucky, but good for you if ...