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This morning I was thinking about Rod Argent's Classically Speaking again. The only Bach piece on it is the C minor prelude and fugue from the Well-Tempered Clavier (BWV 847), and in the liner notes to Zombie Heaven, Argent says that "'Imagine the Swan' was written from the chord sequence of the first Bach prelude in 'The Well-Tempered Clavier' [BWV 846]. Well, actually it was Chris' chord sequence but we did it like that."
There have been a lot of interviews where Argent acknowledges his love of Bach. In the liner notes to Classically Speaking, he says, "And I've always loved Bach!"
Until now I guess I hadn't really considered what of Bach's work Argent loves, but it probably would be the keyboard works. In this interview, he explains that he has the complete Bach organ works performed by Peter Hurford* (whose name is misspelled). But now that I've connected the influence that the Well-Tempered Clavier had on "Imagine the Swan" and Argent's including a prelude and fugue from it on Classically Speaking, I'm wondering how familiar he was with The Well-Tempered Clavier.
I'm woefully ignorant of it. Aside from Argent's recording of the C minor prelude and fugue, I haven't even heard it, much less played it. So there's an-other thing to work on. I'm not sure how long this is going to last, but I think I might start going through the lesson book from the piano class I took in college. Last time I did this, I lasted about six months (last June to December). I'll never be as good as Argent, but I certainly can't get any better if I don't practice.
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*In his book, The Zombies: Hung up on a Dream, Claes Johanen explains that Hurford was in charge of the St. Albans Cathedral choir, which Argent was in. That's kind of skipped around in the interview.
Unfortunately, Hurford's complete Bach organ works is out-of-print (it came out something like twenty years ago). I have the two-disc set of excerpts (coincidentally, like the early Zombies stuff, it's on the Decca label), but I'm still trying to find the complete recordings (for an affordable price, that is).
Hurford also wrote a book, Making Music on the Organ, which I actually got a couple months ago. I'm extraordinarily behind on my reading though, so I doubt I'll get to reading it anytime soon (although to-day I finished a Beethoven biography I've been reading since last March; the Well-Tempered Clavier was mentioned a few times in that too).
