Open Well-Tempered Clavier

[brucknerdoc]

Similar to their Open Goldberg Variations project from 2012, Kimiko Ishizaka and Robert Douglass have now released a Bach: Open Well-Tempered Clavier Project -

 

The Well-Tempered Clavier, by J.S. Bach | Performed on the piano by Kimiko Ishizaka - free, libre, and gratis to download and enjoy

 

Downloads are free (donations are accepted and give access to Bandcamp app streaming) and include booklet, photos, and score. A CD is also available for purchase. This release is WTC Book I and is 2CD.

 

Multiple download formats are available, with lossless being available in 24bit.

 

I have not listened to the download yet, but the Goldberg release was quite good.

 

Enjoy!

[jhwalker]

Similar to their Open Goldberg Variations project from 2012, Kimiko Ishizaka and Robert Douglass have now released a Bach: Open Well-Tempered Clavier Project -

 

The Well-Tempered Clavier, by J.S. Bach | Performed on the piano by Kimiko Ishizaka - free, libre, and gratis to download and enjoy

 

Downloads are free (donations are accepted and give access to Bandcamp app streaming) and include booklet, photos, and score. A CD is also available for purchase. This release is WTC Book I and is 2CD.

 

Multiple download formats are available, with lossless being available in 24bit.

 

I have not listened to the download yet, but the Goldberg release was quite good.

 

Enjoy!

 

Thanks for highlighting this.

 

As you note, the Goldberg recording was excellent, and I'm sure this will be, too.

 

To add a couple of notes:

 

- you're asked to donate at the time of download, but you can choose to donate $0, if you like

- the FLAC download is 96/24

[brucknerdoc]

Curious that the FLAC is 96/24 when the ALAC is 48/24

[ecwl]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I believe ALAC can encode 24/96. However, most modern iOS devices can only playback 24/48 ALAC but not 24/96 ALAC. So it would make sense for commercial companies to provide the consumers 24/48 ALAC so that they can play the files on their iOS devices.

[jhwalker]

Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I believe ALAC can encode 24/96. However, most modern iOS devices can only playback 24/48 ALAC but not 24/96 ALAC. So it would make sense for commercial companies to provide the consumers 24/48 ALAC so that they can play the files on their iOS devices.

 

I noticed a long time ago that Bowers and Wilkins Society of Sound releases follow this same pattern (i.e., the ALAC files are always 24/48, while the FLACs are often 24/96), and I always wondered why. I'll bet that's it - makes sense now.

 

I always download the FLAC and convert to ALAC to get the "best" possible version.

[Jay-dub]

Wanting iOS support as a justification for 24/48 ALAC files makes sense, although 16/48 makes more sense on iOS devices — they never seem to have a low enough noise floor to justify 24-bit files, and I only ever load 16-bit files onto my iOS devices. I've always assumed the reason we see 24/48 ALAC files paired with 24/96 FLAC is that ALAC doesn't compress 24-bit files as efficiently as FLAC (this WTC recording is 1.6GB in 24/96 FLAC and would be 1.8GB in 24/96 ALAC), and it is considered desirable to minimize extra-long downloads.

 

I've just listened to ten tracks from this new recording, and I like it a lot — much better than the Pollini from ca. 2006 and the Tureck from the '50's, both of which have too much legato for my taste, or the Schiff from the '80's, which has many articulation choices that don't seem quite right to me.

[brucknerdoc]

Also curious that the release also appears on several hires sites, ranging from $24-$40 for the download