Das Wohltemperierte Clavier I, Praeludium XVI
Description
A long trill sustained in the upper voice while the other parts begin to move beneath it gives this G minor prelude, No. 16 of Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier, its striking opening.
In 4/4 and written mainly in three voices, it combines long trilled notes with voices moving in sixteenths. The trill motif returns repeatedly and passes to other voices as well. A minor-key shadow and tension are held throughout its settled pace. Running from C2 to C6, it needs only a 61-key keyboard. The G minor fugue that follows is written in four voices.
Rated intermediate, it lasts about 2 minutes 57 seconds with 534 notes in this data. The note count is low, but there are places where one hand must trill while moving another voice, which makes finger independence the main task; keeping the trill even without halting the melodic flow is essential. Slow the playback to see how the trill relates to the other voices, and loop the trilled passages with A-B repeat, and comfortable fingerings become easier to find.
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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