Book Two is headed 24 new Preludes and Fugues. Additional corrections, ornaments and revisions to this manuscript show that Bach continued to both use and perfect Book One throughout the quarter century he was working in Leipzig.īook One is the only part of the ‘48’ to bear the WTC title. It includes 24 Preludes and Fugues in all the major and minor keys. As reported by the Weimar court secretary, Bach was then jailed for a month “in the County Judge’s place of detention, for too stubbornly forcing the issue of his dismissal from the Weimar court.” Once released, Bach made a thorough revision and enlarged the collection by 1721-2, leaving a handsome handwritten copy which survives, in Berlin, to this day. Curiously, some of its Preludes and Fugues may well have been written during the month of November 1717, when Bach, unusually, had lots of time on his hands. An early version of Book One dates from the period 1715-20, as part of a teaching manual for his eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann. The composition, re-shaping and polishing of The Well-Tempered Clavier, or the ‘48’, as the collection is often called, occupied Bach throughout the best part of his career. But in the music, he murmurs to us: no, it’s always both.”īorn in Eisenach, Germany, Madied in Leipzig, Germany, July 28, 1750 On the page he divides the world into major and minor. It is beautiful that Bach belies the premise of his own masterpiece. They give the feeling of a fabric, reversible, invertible, turned inside out and back like a Mobius strip, an unending emotional richness. These moments of turning are for me the core of The Well-Tempered Clavier. We cross and recross the boundary, an act with myriad metaphorical overtones: light meets dark, extrovert becomes introvert, joy gives way to sorrow, etc. “Within every prelude and every fugue, Bach allows major and minor to visit each other. HEALTH AND SAFETY: All patrons are required to wear a mask at this performance. Photography and recording of any kind are not permitted. Please be considerate of others and turn off all phones, pagers, and watch alarms. Das Wolhtemperierte Clavier (The Well-Tempered Clavier), Book One, BWV 846-869 (c1715-22, rev later)
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