The prelude in C major that opens the first volume of
Bach's Well-tempered Clavier may well be his most
universally recognized piece of music -- and yet, as
fate would have it, many of those who know it have
never heard the fugue for which it is a prelude, and
might in fact have no idea that it is part of a larger
work that counts among the most significant and
groundbreaking musical efforts ever penned. Because of
the mathematics involved, the tuning, or temperament,
of a keyboard instrument mu...(+)
The prelude in C major that opens the first volume of
Bach's Well-tempered Clavier may well be his most
universally recognized piece of music -- and yet, as
fate would have it, many of those who know it have
never heard the fugue for which it is a prelude, and
might in fact have no idea that it is part of a larger
work that counts among the most significant and
groundbreaking musical efforts ever penned. Because of
the mathematics involved, the tuning, or temperament,
of a keyboard instrument must necessarily be only an
approximation of intervallic perfection. Various
methods of arriving at a satisfying approximation were
tried out during the Renaissance and Baroque, but none
was really successful -- none produced a tuned
instrument that could play in more than a small handful
of keys without the result sounding grossly out of tune
-- until the late seventeenth century, when several
satisfying methods came into general use. Now a
harpsichordist could play to good effect in each of the
24 keys, and around 1722 Bach decided to compose a
prelude and a fugue in each of them. Historical
considerations aside, the pages of the Well-tempered
Clavier are felt by many to be the most flawlessly
crafted, brilliantly designed music ever composed.
The C major prelude is on the surface a most simple
piece of music: a series of chords unfolds, each
arpeggiated in exactly the same way. But the cleverness
by which that exact series of harmonies in that exact
spacing with that exact arpeggiation was devised cannot
be overestimated. In fact, Bach spent a great deal of
effort on this seemingly effortless miniature, and it
took him more than one try to get it right -- it is one
of just a few Well-tempered Clavier pieces that exist
in more than one version. The fugue is in four voices,
and, interestingly enough, its subject is ever-present,
which means that there are no episodes in the ordinary
sense of the word, only a continuous contrapuntal
elaboration of the subject (which is set against itself
in the fugue's second half in a stretto of supreme
elegance).
Although originally written for Harpsichord. I created
this Interpretation of the Prelude & Fugue in C Major
(BWV 846) for String Quartet (2 Violins, Viola &
Cello).
PARTITION