J.S. Bach Inventions & Sinfonias - A New Piano Performance

My recording of the complete Bach Inventions & Sinfonias was released today on Azure Hills Music. It’s available for digital download and streaming through multiple providers, including iTunes, Spotify, Amazon, CDBaby, Tidal, and more.

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Research For This Recording

This recording chronicles my journey of exploring these keyboard works. During this venture, I consulted many editions and manuscripts including urtext and modern scores. The recordings are infused with hints of interpretations I’ve heard over the years from admired keyboardists.

I purposely rejected several 20th-century viewpoints on Bach interpretation, finding that, particularly during my youth and learning, a specific approach to Johann Sebastian Bach had taken shape, seeking to mimic the idiosyncracies of the harpsichord. After years of diving into the interpretations of harpsichordists and playing through many of these works on my clavichord, I’ve put that rigid constraint aside. Instead, I find these pieces work best on the piano when infused with the instrument’s dynamic colour, shading, and personality.

Recording Notes

I recorded these works several years ago as a personal remembrance. As I revisited them over the years, I heard aspects of the performances that continued to strike me as unique and creative. The thought of releasing the recordings kept coming around. However, the recordings were made on, well, let’s say, several recording rigs ago in my past.

While I’ve recorded direct to DSD for the past few years, these performances were captured on a rig with maximum resolution of 16/44.1. Long cable lengths and some mixer anomalies presented additional challenges in preparing these recordings for release. Izotope software was beneficial in correcting some EQ peaks that I thought for some time just might not be fixable. In the end, I was able to compensate for the technical obstacles of the original sessions with this final mastering.

Technical notes for the recording:

Piano: Kawai RX-6
Microphones: Audio Technica ATM-31a placed in an xy pattern
Digital signal path
Recording engineer: Arthur Dobrucki