The Well-Tempered Clavier I No. 9 in E major
BWV 854 performed by Christian Rieger
at home in Cologne, Germany
Behind the music
Story
Story
Extra videos
Extra videos
Credits
Credits
A lively second
Bach added a short and simple fugue to the sweet prelude
The prelude in E major is sweet and pastoral – mainly due to the drawn-out, tuneful melody with which the right hand opens. Beneath it, the left hand moves quietly forward, providing harmonic support and here and there some thematic comments. At the end of the exposition, Bach briefly seeks out the borders of the key with a couple of chromatic accents, but this does not disturb the sweet character of the piece. The prelude ends with an almost literal repeat of the exposition, but then transposed by a fourth.
An initial version of this prelude already appeared in the music booklet compiled by Bach for his ten-year-old son Wilhelm Friedemann. Bach probably added the fugue to it later, and included the pieces in the Wohltemperirte Clavier (Well-Tempered Clavier).
The theme of the three-part fugue is one of the shortest and simplest of the whole collection. It opens in very lively fashion with two notes, or a ‘second’, which is stressed by the rest that follows. With this little motif, Bach takes one step away from the fundamental tone of E, returning to base again after the tense rest with a run of semiquavers. However, this run does not know when to stop and forms the basic material for the continuation of the fugue.
Das Wohltemperirte Clavier, BWV 846-893
Composing 48 keyboard pieces in all 24 keys was the sort of challenge Bach enjoyed. In each of the two parts of the Wohltemperirte Clavier, he brought together the musical couple prelude and fugue 24 times; twelve in minor keys and twelve in major. In the preludes, he gave free rein to his imagination, and demonstrated mathematical tours de force in the fugues. In contrast to the iron discipline Bach had to apply to his church compositions, here he could abandon himself to intellectual Spielerei without worrying about deadlines.
The first part of the Wohltemperirte Clavier dates from 1722, although it contains some music that was written in the preceding five years. There is less clarity about the history of part two. Bach compiled this second manuscript only around 1740, although once again some of the preludes and fugues it contains date from a much earlier period. Bach described the target group for this collection of pieces as follows: ‘Zum Nutzen und Gebrauch der Lehr-begierigen Musicalischen Jugend, als auch dere in diesem studio schon habil seyenden besonderem ZeitVertreib’ (For both the education of the industrious musical youngster and the enjoyment of those well-versed in this material’).
- BWV
- 854
- Title
- Prelude and fugue in E major
- Epithet
- no. 9 from The Well-Tempered Clavier I
- Instrument
- harpsichord
- Genre
- harpsichord works
- Serie
- Das Wohltemperirte Clavier I
- Year
- 1722 or earlier
- City
- Cöthen (or Weimar?)
With support from
Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds
Extra videos
Vocal texts
Original
Translation
Credits
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- Release date
- 10 November 2017
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- Recording date
- 20 April 2017
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- Location
- Cologne, Germany
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- Harpsichordist
- Christian Rieger
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- Harpsichord
- David Sutherland (Michigan 1990) after Christian Zell (Hamburg 1728)
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- Director
- Jan Van den Bossche, Hanna Schreuders
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- Music recording, edit and mix
- Guido Tichelman
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- Camera and interview
- Gijs Besseling
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- Edditing
- Augustine Huijsser
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- Producer
- Jessie Verbrugh
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- With support from
- Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds
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