Korneel Bernolet | BACH Praeambula & Fantasiae (the complete early Inventions & Sinfonias)

Some pieces stay with you from a young age: it must be about 30 years ago when I played my first Bach Inventions on the piano. Throughout the years, they appeared sometimes daily, always in different tempos, different characters, different registrations... as the musical construction is so strong that it can handle multiple perspectives. This recording is therefore a snapshot, with rather impulsive decisions made from so many existing possibilities made the day after I performed them in their entirety in concert using the earlier versions: the Praeambula and Fantasiae (from the Clavier-Büchlein for W.F. Bach).
By approaching the recording almost like a live concert (but without an audience), the 30 individual pieces together also gain a longer arc of tension. I play them in the order of keys as in the W.F. Bach booklet, but I combined two- and three-part inventions in the way that suited me best. It felt right to perform these educational compositions on my own trusty workhorse after Hemsch 1736, built by Augusto Bonza, the instrument on which —alongside the Dulcken 1747— I truly learned to play the harpsichord.

I dedicate this recording with deep gratitude to the man who shaped my fingers and mind into those of the musician I am today: Paul Clement, my piano teacher and mentor until I was 17, who heard most of these little pieces played by my young fingers, and whom I recently had the great joy of seeing again at my recital with the Notenbüchlein of Anna Magdalena Bach the day after this recording took place in Ghent.

Johann Sebastian BACH: Praeambula & Fantasiae
the early Inventionen & Sinfonien
from the Clavier-Büchlein vor W.F. Bach
BWV 772–801

KORNEEL BERNOLET
harpsichord Augusto Bonza 2011 after J.H. Hemsch 1736

semi-live recording without audience
28 March 2025
Kraakhuis Muziekcentrum De Bijloke, Ghent, Belgium

www.korneel.bernolet.com

audio: single pair of B&K 4006 through RME Babyface (with HVAC noise reduction...)