The Well-Tempered Clavier (German: Das Wohltemperierte
Klavier), BWV 846–893, is a collection of solo
keyboard music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. He
gave the title to a book of preludes and fugues in all
24 major and minor keys, dated 1722, composed "for the
profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning,
and especially for the pastime of those already skilled
in this study". Bach later compiled a second book of
the same kind, dated 1742, with the title Twenty-four
Preludes and Fug...(+)
The Well-Tempered Clavier (German: Das Wohltemperierte
Klavier), BWV 846–893, is a collection of solo
keyboard music composed by Johann Sebastian Bach. He
gave the title to a book of preludes and fugues in all
24 major and minor keys, dated 1722, composed "for the
profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning,
and especially for the pastime of those already skilled
in this study". Bach later compiled a second book of
the same kind, dated 1742, with the title Twenty-four
Preludes and Fugues. The two works are now considered
to make up a single work, The Well-Tempered Clavier, or
"the 48", and are referred to as The Well-Tempered
Clavier Book I and The Well-Tempered Clavier Book II
respectively. This collection is generally regarded as
being among the most influential works in the history
of Western classical music.
The first set was compiled in 1722 during Bach's
appointment in Köthen; the second followed 20 years
later in 1742 while he was in Leipzig. Both were widely
circulated in manuscript, but printed copies were not
made until 1801, by three publishers almost
simultaneously in Bonn, Leipzig and Zurich. Bach's
style went out of favour in the time around his death,
and most music in the early Classical period had
neither contrapuntal complexity nor a great variety of
keys. But, with the maturing of the Classical style in
the 1770s, the Well-Tempered Clavier began to influence
the course of musical history, with Haydn and Mozart
studying the work closely.
Each set contains twenty-four pairs of preludes and
fugues. The first pair is in C major, the second in C
minor, the third in C-sharp major, the fourth in
C-sharp minor, and so on. The rising chromatic pattern
continues until every key has been represented,
finishing with a B-minor fugue.
Bach recycled some of the preludes and fugues from
earlier sources: the 1720 Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm
Friedemann Bach, for instance, contains versions of
eleven of the preludes. The C-sharp major prelude and
fugue in book one was originally in C major - Bach
added a key signature of seven sharps and adjusted some
accidentals to convert it to the required key. The
far-reaching influence of Bach's music is evident in
that the fugue subject in Mozart's Prelude and Fugue in
C major, K. 394, is similar in structure to that of the
A-flat major Fugue in Book II of the Well-Tempered
Clavier. This pattern is found also in the C major
fugue subject of Book II. Another similar theme is the
third movement fugue subject in the Concerto for Two
Harpsichords, BWV 1061.
Bach's title suggests that he had written for a
(12-note) well-tempered tuning system in which all keys
sounded in tune (also known as "circular temperament").
The opposing system in Bach's day was meantone
temperament in which keys with many accidentals sound
out of tune. (See also musical tuning). It is sometimes
assumed that Bach intended equal temperament, the
standard modern keyboard tuning which became popular
after Bach's death, but modern scholars suggest instead
a form of well temperament. There is debate whether
Bach meant a range of similar temperaments, perhaps
even altered slightly in practice from piece to piece,
or a single specific "well-tempered" solution for all
purposes.
Although this Prelude (BWV 866 Book I No. 21) in B-flat
major was originally written for keyboard, I created
this arrangement for Solo Viola.
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