Main content

Journalist and writer Rachel Cooke considers The Well-Tempered Clavier as domestic music: written in a busy household to be played in busy households for centuries to follow.

The Essay reflects upon the first book of The Well-Tempered Clavier by JS Bach, his landmark collection of Preludes and Fugues in every available key. Journalist and writer Rachel Cooke considers the role of the Well-Tempered Clavier as domestic music – written in a busy household to be played in busy households for centuries to follow.

Technical Producer... Mike Etherden
Production co-ordinator... Sara Benaim

Written and presented by Rachel Cooke
Produced by Abigail le Fleming

A ´óÏó´«Ã½ Audio Production for Radio 3

About the essayist...

Rachel Cooke is an award-winning journalist. She is a writer and columnist at the Observer, and the television critic of the New Statesman. Her series about spinsters and other singletons, The Odd Woman, was broadcast on Radio 3 in 2020. Her book, Her Brilliant Career: Ten Extraordinary
Women of the Fifties, is published by Virago. She is currently working on The Reckoning, a book exploring ideas around bad behaviour and good art.

Available now

14 minutes

Last on

Thu 10 Aug 2023 22:45

Broadcasts

  • Wed 23 Feb 2022 22:45
  • Thu 10 Aug 2023 22:45

Death in Trieste

Death in Trieste

A 1760s murder still informs ideas about aesthetics, a certain sort of sex, and death.

Watch: My Deaf World

Watch: My Deaf World

Five compelling experiences of what it is like to be deaf in 21st-century Britain.

The Book that Changed Me

Five figures from the arts and science introduce books that changed their lives and work.

Download The Essay

Download The Essay

Download all the episodes from the series and listen at your leisure.

Podcast