Das Wohltemperierte Clavier II, Praeludium I
Description
A full, organ-like sound raises the curtain on Book II of The Well-Tempered Clavier in this C major prelude. It differs greatly in writing and scale from the broken-chord prelude that opens Book I. Book II was compiled around the early 1740s, some twenty years after Book I.
Over a firmly supporting bass, several voices intertwine in 4/4, moving through the harmony. Instead of carrying a single figure through, it is written as lines moving against one another, and it has a stately character. Its range, C2 to C6, stays inside a 61-key keyboard.
With several voices moving at once, the advanced task is to keep each line intact without clouding the overall sound; dividing the fingers is key where one hand carries two voices. In this data it lasts about 1 minute 59 seconds with 833 notes. Check how the voices are divided with the hand colours, follow the harmony with slower playback, and isolate the more intricate passages with an A-B loop.
Bach's collection of preludes and fugues for keyboard, covering all 24 keys and regarded as the summit of contrapuntal writing.
Browse all songs in The Well-Tempered Clavier →Sheet Music
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.
View all works by Bach →