The 48 Preludes and Fugues of the two books of Johann Sebastian Bach's Well-Tempered Klavier represent one of the great edifices of baroque music. Their purpose was to demonstrate the new system of keyboard tuning, which divided the octave into 12 equal half-steps: equal temperament.
In writing a prelude and fugue in both the major and minor mode of each possible key, Bach was indulging in an early form of product endorsement. He was also, however, celebrating the new harmonic freedom, as if he had been given a passport to exotic and hitherto inaccessible terrain.
The consummate keyboard skill and intellectual rigour that the work demands make it a challenge even for Bach specialists. For a young artist it constitutes a rite of passage. The Welsh-Australian pianist Daniel Martyn Lewis, clearly possessed of an even disposition, undertook the 48 in a series of four morning recitals at the Guardian Hay Festival.
Lewis's grasp of the contrapuntal complexities was evident. He set out the musical ideas with clarity, tracing lines and colouring voices thoughtfully and deliberately, building a solid architectural structure while articulating intricacies of chromatic harmony and rhythm. The Fugue in C sharp minor of Book I was imposing, yet Lewis was also able to inject a lightness into the texture before bringing a grandeur to the final emphatic restatement.
While fugues were consistently delivered with a strong sense of accumulating tension, the preludes were not quite so convincing. The aural imagination that allows the pianist to capture the essence of individual preludes as well as the extraordinary overall variety of style and mood is something that Lewis will acquire with maturity. But in the Prelude and Fugue in D minor from Book II, his affinity with Bach was obvious.
In his introductory remarks, Lewis suggested that however great the wonder at the mathematical precision of Bach's music, it was its intense beauty and the emotional response that are paramount. After every session at Hay, each speaker or performer is presented with a perfect white rose. Here the gesture was doubly symbolic.
