On track: Ashkenazy offers brave interpretation of Bach's colossus

Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier is one of the cornerstones of music - two books of 24 preludes and fugues acknowledging that one could play in all major and minor keys on the well-tempered keyboards of the 18th century.

Mozart arranged the occasional fugue from it for string trio and it was a musical bible for Chopin the piano teacher. Hindemith and Shostakovich would later model their preludes and fugues on Bach's example.

Pianists from Edwin Fischer in the 1930s have been drawn to record this colossus.

There were the controversial Glenn Gould sets of the 1960s, with crooning obbligato. These days we can choose between the classic Andras Schiff, jazzman Keith Jarrett or the sublimely unaffected Angela Hewitt.

Vladimir Ashkenazy and Decca are brave adding another contestant to a crowded catalogue, especially when the Russian is now better known on the podium than at the piano.

Celebrated for his incandescent interpretations of 19th and 20th-century repertoire, he has a meagre track record with Baroque composers.

A modus operandi is revealed in the first few preludes and fugues. A wafting C major prelude could well accommodate Gounod's Ave Maria floating above it, and its relaxed spirit lingers in its fugue.

On the other hand, the turmoil of the C minor prelude is a warning of a furious fugue to follow - percussively delivered, as if the keys were white hot.

C sharp major whirs away a little mechanically, although its skipping three-voice fugue has its own lithe grace. With C sharp minor, we lose too many ornaments in the prelude, although the fugue has the same stoic grandeur that Ashkenazy can bring to the great Russian composers.

Listening through the three discs, while it's undeniable that Ashkenazy invests preludes with their own character, the fugues more often than not disappoint through their aggressive, thrusting accentuations. Significantly, the G minor Fugue from Book 2 begins with some metronomic clicks competing with the piano.

Recorded over a year, there is a remarkable unity to the set, atmospherically captured by the combined artistry of Steinway and Decca, but those fugues remain a taste to be acquired.

* Vladimir Ashkenazy plays Bach's The Well-Tempered Clavier (Decca 475 6832)