Bach’s The Well-Tempered Clavier was written at a time when composers had begun to expand the limited tonal compass of keyboard instruments through far wider use of keys and, ultimately, equal temperament. The 48 preludes and fugues that constitute The Well-Tempered Clavier are composed in a wide range of styles, and the work remains one of the most important and influential in Western classical music. Francesco Cera is a prominent Italian early music specialists and he plays on a copy of a Hemsch harpsichord of 1736, using his own personal tuning. For Book II he employs the Altnickol edition of the score which includes numerous variants.

Francesco Cera, a harpsichordist and organist from Bologna, is a renowned early music specialist for the keyboard repertoire of the 16th–18th centuries and a conductor of vocal music. He studied under Luigi Ferdinando Tagliavini and Gustav Leonhardt and joined the Giardino Armonico ensemble in 1991. He founded Ensemble Arte Musica in 1996, specialising in Italian vocal music. Francesco has performed in prestigious venues and on historical organs throughout Europe as a soloist and director. He has an extensive discography, including complete works by Girolamo Frescobaldi.