Das Wohltemperierte Clavier I, Praeludium V
Description
A lively D major prelude stands before a fugue known for its dotted rhythms in the manner of a French overture. Together they form the fifth pair of Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier.
In 4/4 time, the right hand plays a sixteenth-note figure without a break, while the left hand marks the beat with an eighth-note bass. The harmony moves forward with this pairing until, near the end, the figure breaks off into rapid runs and chords for an improvisatory close. Its range runs from D2 to B5, within a 61-key keyboard.
Rated intermediate, it lasts about 2 minutes 24 seconds with 718 notes in this data. The tasks are to keep the right hand's sixteenths even to the very end, and to keep the left-hand bass light and detached so that it drives the music on. With the two hands' roles so clearly divided, the hand colours make the structure easy to read. Learn the right-hand pattern with slower playback, then use an A-B loop on the free closing section alone, and the piece comes together efficiently.
Bach's collection of preludes and fugues for keyboard, covering all 24 keys and regarded as the summit of contrapuntal writing.
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Sheet music provided by Mutopia Project
About the Composer
Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750)
Johann Sebastian Bach was the towering figure of German Baroque music, serving for decades as Cantor of St. Thomas Church in Leipzig. Renowned for his mastery of counterpoint, he laid the foundations of keyboard music with works such as The Well-Tempered Clavier and the Inventions. This site includes minuets and polonaises from the Notebook for Anna Magdalena Bach, the Inventions and Sinfonias, and fugues from The Well-Tempered Clavier. The Notebook pieces are catalogued with BWV Anh. (appendix) numbers, but many are by other composers - Petzold's minuets among them - or by no one known, and most of their song pages give the current view of who wrote them.
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