Bach: The Well-Tempered Consort – I

The miracle of Bach’s music is that you can arrange it for any type or number of instruments, and it’ll still come out shining. This joyful album features a selection of the composer’s keyboard works framed by two movements from the Musical Offering, usually performed by flute and strings. Phantasm, a consort of five viols—early versions of the modern cello—bring aspects of Bach’s thrilling counterpoint to light with expressive touches here and there, and often a lightness and variety of texture that’s hard or impossible to achieve midflow on the organ, harpsichord or piano. Rarely have Bach’s fugues sounded so dancelike, light and fleet, especially the great E-flat Prelude and Fugue BWV 552 or the Prelude No. 24 from Book 1 of The Well-Tempered Clavier.