Robert sez, “The same team that created the Open Goldberg Variations, a new public domain recording and digital score of Bach’s famous keyboard work, is fundraising on Kickstarter with the goal of liberating the 48 pieces in J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1. This means releasing the digital score, the full studio recording (to be performed by pianist Kimiko Ishizaka in the Teldex Studio on a Basendorfer 280), and all of the underlying source files (ie. the multi-track recording files and the MuseScore version of the score). The project will also produce a commercially printed score, published by GRIN Verlag, a German publisher, and a double CD recording that will be produced and distributed by PARMA Recordings, an American record label. The fact that a publisher and a label are both behind the idea of ‘Setting Bach Free’ is an important cue to the industry that customers are tired of being beaten over the head with copyright, and that the movement to create open source versions
of our most cherished cultural treasures is indeed taking off.”
Your support will allow us to record in the Teldex Studio, with Anne-Marie Sylvestre as the producer. Your support will allow us to be quite obsessive in creating a beautiful score that is as true to Bach’s manuscript as we can be. Your support will allow us to do the mastering of the recording using state-of-the-art equipment to guarantee the best sound possible.We’ve got some great rewards for our backers, including copies of the Double CD (PARMA Recordings’ Navona Label); the printed score (GRIN Verlag edition); USB sticks with LOTS of cool files; scans of Kimiko Ishizaka’s study scores with fingerings, phrasing, and analysis markings; private lessons or concerts with Kimiko Ishizaka; and VIP tickets to upcoming concerts and the CD release parties (Berlin, Paris, London, New York). You even have the chance to sit in the control booth during the recording sessions in the Teldex Studio.
Perhaps the nicest backer reward, however, is the dedication of one of the Preludes or Fugues. One of the 48 pieces is dedicated to someone or something you love or honor. This dedication will appear in all published formats of the work, including the printed score and commercial CD. Since this is a public domain work, and will be stored on all of the important internet archives and libraries, your dedication will exist and be remembered for as long as humans listen to music. This is your chance to do something eternal for someone you love. Dedications are typically 1-3 lines of text.
Open Well-Tempered Clavier – Ba©h to Bach
(Thanks, Robert!)