 A une époque où le mot de légitimité est sur toutes les lèvres, il est normal de se demander s’il est bien légitime d’interpréter à l’orgue une œuvre à visée pédagogique comme le "Clavier bien tempéré". Certains, et non des moindres, s’y sont déjà risqués mais ils ne sont pas légion. Même le grand Helmut Walcha, qui fut le premier à graver l’œuvre d’orgue de Bach au début des années 1950, a choisi le clavecin pour nous léguer son interprétation. Il semble qu’à l’époque du Cantor, le terme "Klavier" s’entendait de tout instrument à clavier sans pédalier, clavecin ou clavicorde. Mais nombreuses sont les compositions de Bach pour l’orgue joué "manualiter" et certaines parties du "Clavier" appellent l’usage du pédalier ! Alors, laissons-là la querelle et ne boudons pas notre plaisir ! Car il est clair que l’orgue offre une palette sonore incomparable. Sous les doigts – et les pieds - d’un interprète aussi inspiré que Daniele Boccaccio, dont le choix des registrations et la variété des tempi font merveille, c’est un tableau restauré que l’on découvre. A mettre sans hésiter aux côtés des plus belles versions au clavecin …et au piano ! (Yves Kerbiriou) The Old Testament of keyboard music, as it’s well - known, and readily played on every instrument with black and white keys, from the kind of tiny house clavichord on which Bach probably wrote much of The Well - Tempered Clavier, to modern accordions and synthesisers. And yet Daniele Boccaccio’s new recording is the only one presently available to be played on Bach’s own instrument, the organ. Boccaccio is not the first to do so, and it’s hardly an iconoclastic gesture. As he points out in his booklet - note, several preludes and fugues, especially in Book 2 (written over a decade after the First) , suggest that the organ was the (or at least an) intended instrument for their legato figuration and long - held notes. The maverick scholar and musician Robert Levin recorded a Well - Tempered Clavier on four different instruments, including clavichord, two - manual harpsichord, chamber organ and even fortepiano, but Boccaccio has elected one instrument for his journey through this compilation which tests the limits of a keyboard player’s technique and imagination like no other. The instrument of S. Antonio Abate in Padua was built by Francesco Zanin and has been used for many recordings since its inauguration in 2006, including on Brilliant Classics. Boccaccio freely admits he has used the full colouristic capabilities of the instrument: ‘I tried to make the performance as varied as possible from the tonal point of view, merging together all the available colours of the organ stops, according to the technical and stylistic suggestions of the time.’ He has form in Bach on Brilliant before, accompanying Patxi Montero in the sonatas for viola da gamba (BC95042) and then playing his own, strikingly original transcriptions of the violin concertos (BC94829).
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