Mai Musical de Meursault - Benjamin Alard, orgue : « Le clavier bien tempéré, premier cahier », Jean Sébastien Bach

The Well-Tempered Clavier was compiled by Johann Sebastian Bach in 1722. The first volume (the second was published 22 years later) contains 24 Preludes & Fugues composed in the 12 major and minor keys. Each key imposes its own colour and character, which the musician must absorb and pass on to his listeners. These works are most commonly played on the harpsichord, piano or clavichord. One of the first to perform the complete works on the organ was Louis Thiry, Benjamin Alard's teacher, and this selection of 14 numbers (BACH is, B = 2, A = 1, C = 3 + H = 8 = 14) is particularly well-suited to the organ, allowing for a number of musical effects, including nuances and registrations that may surprise listeners...

Benjamin Alard's universe is that of the music of Johann Sebastian Bach, and it was for this musical complicity that the jury of the Bruges International Harpsichord Competition awarded him first prize in 2004.
Attracted to the mysteries of the organ from an early age, his first teachers were François Ménissier and Louis Thiry at the Dieppe and Rouen conservatoires. It was thanks to Elisabeth Joyé, with whom he studied in Paris, that he discovered the harpsichord repertoire. In 2003, he joined the Schola Cantorum in Basel to work with Jörg-Andreas Bötticher, Jean-Claude Zehnder and Andrea Marcon.
Benjamin Alard has been organist at the Bernard Aubertin organ in the church of Saint-Louis-en-l'Île in Paris since 2005, where he regularly gives recitals focusing on the music of Bach.
Playing both harpsichord and organ, he divides his time between recitals and chamber music (two harpsichords with Élisabeth Joyé, sonatas with flutist Emmanuel Pahud), and is a guest at the world's leading early music centres in Europe, Japan and the United States every season.
In 2017, he began recording the complete works for solo keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach for Hamonia mundi. This work, of uncommon importance, will take more than ten years to complete. Ten volumes, out of a total of 17, are now available. The publication of the recording of the 1st Book of the 'Well-Tempered Clavier' to mark the 300th anniversary of the work (March 2022) was chosen as recording of the month by the English magazine Gramophone and was awarded a 'Diapason d'or-Arte' by Diapason magazine.