ExclusiveBach: The Well Tempered Clavier, Book I, Prelude and Fugue No. 18 in G-sharp minor, BWV 863

【Classical music and nature 古典音樂小站】Johann Sebastian Bach: The Well Tempered Clavier, Book I, Prelude and Fugue No. 18 in G-sharp minor, BWV 863. This beautiful piece was played by Raymond Smullyan. It has Creative Commons license (CC BY 3.0 DEED Attribution 3.0 Unported) and is provided through www.musopen.org.

Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, affectionately known as the great '48', comprises two sets of preludes and fugues composed in every major and minor key of the chromatic scale. These are some of Bach's most enduring works - the first volume dates from 1722, the second from much later in 1744. In an age of ubiquitous unequal temperaments (or tuning systems), which favoured sweet and pure intervals in some keys but rendered those with too many sharps or flats unusable (or at least a bit off!), a "well-tempered" tuning system, to which these pieces refer in their title, is thought to have been Bach's solution to composing in even the most remote keys.

But beyond this, the Well-Tempered Clavier is a feast of old and progressive styles, nationalistic influences and various compositional techniques that show the wealth of Bach's genius and imagination.

They're also a constant source of inspiration. There are so many recordings of Bach's '48' on both piano and harpsichord, and with good reason. These pieces have been admired almost ever since he wrote them. They are truly a monument in the history of Western music. (Source: https://indianapublicmedia.org/)

This view was filmed by Simone Schlegel and she has no idea where she filmed it. My deepest apologies! The video was edited by Wenjing Ma.







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