Classical Music | Piano Music

Recorded on 09/04/2013, uploaded on 04/10/2014

Musician's or Publisher's Notes

Many consider the two books of the Well-Tempered Clavier, from which this piece comes, to be Bach's finest keyboard collection. The ruminative prelude would fit well into one of Bach's cello suites if it had managed to establish and sustain its mood with only one line, rather than the two separate voices employed here. The piece meanders at a fairly slow pace, then gives way to a remarkably suspenseful fugal subject, the player seeming to pause after each note to decide which menacing direction to take next. Ultimately, the fugue becomes obsessed with a five-note figure derived from the original subject, and with this it moves resignedly to its conclusion.    Alice Chenyang Xu   Notes from http://www.classicalarchives.com/work/2363.html#tvf=tracks&tv=about

Courtesy of International Music Foundation.