HARMONIA MUNDI (Basf)
5 LPs - 59 29173-1 - (p) 1973
2 CDs - GD 77011 - (c) 1989
2 CDs - GD 77012 - (c) 1989

DAS WOHLTEMPERIERTE KLAVIER - 1. + 2. TEIL





Johann Sebastian BACH (1685-1750) 1. Teil (Köthen 1722) - 24 Präludien und Fugen durch die Tonarten, BWV 846-869 *



- I. C-dur
3' 39" A1

- II. c-moll
3' 32" A2

- III. Cis-dur
5' 00" A3

- IV. cis-moll
6' 52" A4

- V. D-dur
3' 31" A5

- VI. d-moll
3' 56" A6

- VII. Es-dur
7' 09" B1

- VIII. es-moll
9' 05" B2

- IX. E-dur
3' 09" B3

- X. e-moll
3' 24" B4

- XI. F-dur
3' 10" B5

- XII. f-moll
6' 40" B6

- XIII. Fis-dur
3' 57" C1

- XIV. fis-moll
4' 16" C2

- XV. G-dur
4' 00" C3

- XVI. g-moll
4' 06" C4

- XVII. As-dur
3' 39" C5

- XVIII. gis-moll
4' 49" C6

- XIX. A-dur
3' 40" D1

- XX. a-moll
6' 17" D2

- XXI. B-dur
3' 12"
D3

- XXII. b-moll
5' 18" D4

- XXIII. H-dur
4' 06" D5

- XXIV. h-moll
8' 38" D6
Johann Sebastian BACH 2. Teil (Köthen 1744) - 24 Präludien und Fugen durch die Tonarten, BWV 870-893 **



- I - IV
21' 52" E1-4

- V - VIII
20' 37" F1-4

- IX - XII
24' 04" G1-4

- XIII - XVI
23' 34" H1-4

- XVII - XX
23' 25" I1-4

- XXI - XXIV
28' 33" J1-4





 
Gustav Leonhardt, Cembalo
- Martin Skowroneck, Bremen 1962 nach einem Instrument von J. D. Dulcken, Antwerpen 1745 (gestimmt im tiefen Kammerton) **
- David Rubio, Oxford 1972 nach Pascal Taskin (gestimmt im tiefen Kammerton) *
 





Luogo e data di registrazione
Cedernsaal, Schloß Kirchheim (Germany):
- 1967 **
- 1972/73 *

Registrazione: live / studio
studio

Recording Supervision
Thomas Gallia * | Kurt Hahn **

Engineer
Hubert Kübler

Prima Edizione LP
Harmonia Mundi (Basf) | 59 29173-1 | 5 LPs - durata 58' 50" - 54' 54" - 37' 02" - 45' 09" - 49' 33" | (p) 1973

Edizione CD
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi | LC 00761 | GD 77011 | 2 CDs - durata 59' 38" - 56' 25" | (c) 1989 | ADD *
Deutsche Harmonia Mundi | LC 00761 | GD 77012 | 2 CDs - durata 63' 22" - 72' 40" | (c) 1989 | ADD **

Cover Art
"Wohltemperierten Klavier" in Bachs Handschrift.

Note
Questa edizione contiene anche la pubblicazione HMS 30 850/52 contenente 2. Teil (BWV 870-893) a cui si rimanda per i dettagli.












THE WELL-TEMPERED CLAVIER
Discussions of the continuing influence of J. S. Bach’s works in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries usually make some reference to the correspondence between Goethe and Carl Friedrich Zelter. The latter, admirable composer and versatile music teacher in Berlin, is chiefly remembered on account of his practical cultivation of Bach’s works, a thing seldom heard of at that time. Goethe, recalling in 1827 an encounter he had had with the clavier works of Bach some years previously, writes as follows: “There for the first time - my spirit was calm and undistracted from without - I was able to form an idea of your grand master. I expressed it this way; it is as if eternal Harmony were holding discourse with itself, discourse no different from that in God’s own bosom, just before the creation of the universe.” Among the works Goethe had heard on the occasion referred to, were preludes and fugues by Bach, and it has been customary to consider the quote not only as a piece of inspired insight but also as an indication that Goethe's encounter with the Well-tempered Clavier and other works had been for him a significant musical experience.
Closer research, however, has shown that Goethe’s remarks about ‘eternal Harmony’ refer less to an immediate and deeply moving experience of Bach’s music than to his appropriation and assimilation of Zelter’s own thoughts; thoughts to which, admittedly, Goethe will have naturally tended himself, not only on account of occasional performances of J. S. Bach’s clavier works but also as a result of his own efforts towards deeper insight into the theory of music. The thoughts expressed in the quotation, however, whether they belong more to Zelter or more to Goethe, remain a characteristic expression of the understanding of Bach’s music in the years before 1829, when the St. Matthew Passion was performed again for the first time under the direction of Mendelssohn.
They are characteristic not only inasmuch as Goethe - who possessed his own copy of the Well-tempered Clavier - refers to those works which were almost the only ones still generally known, but also inasmuch as Bach was then considered first and foremost (to quote a letter of Beethoven from the year 1801) as the “Father of Harmony”. It is a common feature of all consummate art that something of its unique nature will continue to be visible in the eulogies of later generations, even when the standpoint there adopted - determined as it often was by the fashions of the age - must appear to the historian one-sided or even arbitrary. This holds good for the general estimation of Bach’s keyboard art and its nature towards the end of the eighteenth and in the early nineteenth century. In assessing the true nature of Bach’s attitude towards ‘Harmony’ we will readily turn to the Well-tempered Clavier; not only because it was one of the important determinants of the estimations above mentioned; it has an important bearing on the matter which the title of the first collection makes clear:
The Well-tempered Clavier, or preludes and fugues through all the tones and semitones, both with the major third or Ut, Re, Mi and with the minor third or Re, Mi, Fa. For the use and practice of young musicians who desire to learn, as well as for the particular diversion of those who are already skilled in this study; made and composed by Johann Sebastian Bach, Kapellmeister for the time being to the Duke of Anhalt-Cöthen and director of his chamber music, Anno Domini 1722.
Here was a work containing compositions “through all the tones and semitones", on all twelve semitones of the octave without exception; and, more than this, on each semitone pieces with the major and minor third, i.e. in the major and the minor key. The appearance of such a work was in Bach’s day hardly an everyday occurence; for the problem of finding a tuning for the ‘clavier’, i. e. the clavichord, organ and harpsichord, which would make a work containing all possible keys a practicable proposition had by no means been generally settled in favour of the equal temperament, which was soon to become the norm. In this temperament the perfect octave, as it is produced by dividing a string in the proportion 1:2, is subdivided into twelve equal semitones. This, however, has the result that the semitones thus produced will not compose quite true intervals with the original tone, for which there are also definite numerical proportions; the perfect fifth, for example, is produced by dividing a string in the proportion 2:3; the perfect fourth, major third and minor third are produced by dividing in the proportions 3:4, 4:5 and 5:6 respectively. These proportions were already known in the ancient world and have never ceased to give the study of music a particular importance. In the geocentric conception of the universe, the theory of the harmony of the spheres held that the orbits of the planets - apart from some details of calculation - followed the same principles. On this understanding, insight into the nature of music naturally implied insight into the order of the universe. The numerical basis of music, justified as it seemed to be by an oft quoted passage in the Apocrypha, “But thou has ordered all things by measure and number and weight" (Wisdom of Solomon 11,21), together with the notion of God as the musician of the spheres, played an important part in the Christian understanding of music in the Middle Ages. And even in the baroque period such ideas had not lost their attraction, although the heliocentric theory of the universe had been propunded long before by Nicolas Copernicus, and scientific astronomy in the modern sense had already been established by the Astronomia Nova of Kepler in 1609. For the purposes of practical musicmaking, however, these same numerical proportions involved the following difficulty: when a certain tone is reached by the summation of different true intervals, it will not have quite the same pitch in every case, though the name of the tone be the same. For example: an octave made up of three major thirds C - E - G# - B# (C) has the proportion 1:1 61/64, and this is a little below the truly tuned octave C - C with the proportion 1:2. Further: if we tune up four steps in true perfect fifths (F - C - G - D - A), the resulting A (interval proportion 1:5 1/16) is higher than if we had tuned two octaves and a major third (respectively 1:4 and 4:5), which gives for the same tone A an interval proportion of precisely 1:5. In view of this it was necessary in the case of instruments to find temperaments which would compensate for these differences. Over the period from the close of the Middle Ages till the time of Bach, the so-called mean-tone temperament had won a certain acceptance. There were many different versions of this, but the basic principle was that octave and major third should be true, while whole tone steps should be of the same size (the latter differ considerably from one another when they are truly tuned). Fifths and minor thirds, on the other hand, had to be a little flat; fourths a little sharp. This compromise, the first detailed description of which is to be found in Spiegel der Organisten und Orgelmacher (Mirror of Organists and Organbuilders) by Arnold Schlick, 1511, allowed for euphonious chords with true major thirds on C, D, Eb, E, F, G, A and Bb; the chords with minor third on A, B, C, C#, D, E, F# and G were satisfactory. This was enough to ensure a sufficient measure of true harmony for music-making in the usual, church mode orientated keys of the day. Indeed, with its true major third, the temperament was particularly suited to the music of that time. Yet it did render certain chords impracticable on account of strident intervals such as the ‘fifth’ Ab - Eb; these were nicknamed ‘wolves’ because of their unpleasant ‘howling’ in the organ.
More distant keys had first been explored by vocal music as early as the sixteenth century - to begin with, admittedly, mainly by way of experiment. After the establishment of the new tonality based on the major and minor systems - one of the achievements of the baroque period - it was natural that the musically interested should endeavour to secure for instrumental music too, a greater measure of freedom in matters of modulation and choice of key. There was one method of extending the list of possible keys which was evidently widespread at that time; this involved altering the tuning as required, e. g. Eb to D#. Nonetheless, towards the end of the seventeenth and in the early eighteenth century the supporters of new temperaments increased in number and strength. Noteworthy among these was Andreas Werckmeister who published an important treatise in 1691: Musical Temperament, or, clear and true mathematical instruction how to tune in a well-tempered fashion the Organ-Works, Positive Organs, Regals, Spinets and the like. We should note here that Werckmeister and other proponents of a well-tempered tuning were aiming not so much at equal temperament as at an unequal temperament which would make it possible to “muzzle those wolves at least a little”, as Johann Georg Neidhardt wrote in 1706; distant keys continued as before to receive little attention in comparison with the usual ones. Nevertheless, by means of this temperament (gradually ousted by equal temperament) it had become possible at least in principle to play in all keys. Thus Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer, in his collection of small preludes and fugues for the organ entitled Ariadne Musica (printed in 1715, perhaps for the first time in 1702) made use of twenty keys. In this collection the fusion of tradition and innovation is particularly noticeable. The pieces belong to the tradition of the cycles of South German versets which up till then had been composed in the church modes. These are given here ‘per omnes tonos’, i. e. through all the keys. The final step was taken by Johann Mattheson, who in his Exemplarische Organistenprobe, 1719, (the title alludes to the auditions in which a would-be organist had to prove his skill) provided examples of thorough bass in all twentyfour major and minor keys.
All these attempts were outshone by the Well-tempered Clavier, completed in 1722; for here all twenty-four keys were not simply presented in instructive examples but shaped and formed into a unique artistic creation. This aspect remains unaffected by subsidiary questions to which no definite answer can be given; whether Bach, in using the term ‘well-tempered’ in the work’s title, was referring more to an approximately equal temperament or more to an unequal temperament, and what the characteristics of the latter were. (It is probable that he meant unequal.) In the same way, the role played by Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer in stimulating the arrangement of the work and in inspiring a number of the themes is of more interest to the historian than to anyone else. Even the educational purposes of the Well-tempered Clavier, indicated in the title and visible in the genesis of the work, are of less importance than the finished piece of art which Bach formed out of the twentyfour preludes and fugues, pieces which first gave artistic expression to the newfound meaning in the ‘Cosmos of Harmony’.
All this can be applied with equal justice to the second group of twenty-four preludes and fugues, which have come to be known as the ‘Well-tempered Clavier, Part II’. Such, at any rate, is the title carried by a copy dating from 1781; the incomplete and only extant autograph version, now in London, has no title at all. While the latter probably represents the original version of the collection, completed around the year 1740, a series of alterations was undertaken by J. S. Bach himself in later years, as is evident from unanimous variant readings in the more recent copies of the Bach pupils Kirnberger and Altnikol. The division of the whole collection of the Well-tempered Clavier and Part I into Part II, though customary to-day, cannot definitely be attributed to Bach himself. The Clavier-Übung, on the other hand, was published from 1726 on in parts defined as such by Bach himself. If we compare these two works, it is quite clear that the parts of the Well-tempered Clavier have nothing much more in common than the external arrangement of the pieces. The Clavier-Übung, by contrast, contains works of different kinds and its parts, moreover, are related to each other in a different way. One such relation becomes evident if we bear in mind Bach’s habit of representing his own name by the figures 14 or 41 (calculated from the numbered alphabet).
The first part of the Clavier-Übung (Bach’s op. 1 in print) contains 41 movements, the second part 14. The third part contains church music, and with its twenty-seven movements (3x3x3) calls to mind the Holy Trinity and brings the whole total up to 2x41. As for the socalled fourth part - the Goldberg Variations -, while this was published by Bach under the general title of the Clavier-Übung, it was not expressly designated by him as its fourth part. In our comparison we must bear in mind that the different parts of the Clavier-Übung followed one another fairly quickly, while the two parts of the Well-tempered Clavier are separated by a space of almost twenty years and belong to quite different creative periods. The first collection takes its place among the great instrumental compositions and cycles of Bach’s highly fruitful period in Cöthen. Here, as musical director at the court of a Duke who was no beginner in musical matters, he was obliged to turn his attention to secular music and produced a rich crop of works for organ and other keyboard instruments, chamber music and numerous compositions for a larger ensemble. The second collection, however, belongs to the later Leipzig period. At this time, less occupied with the regular composition of new works for the church, Bach took stock of the existing œuvre. Finishing touches were added here and there and various works were brought to perfection.
The instrumental works of the 1740's, Goldberg Variations, Canonic Variations on the Christmas Carol, Vom Himmel hoch, The Musical Offering, Seventeen Chorales for Organ and The Art of Fugue form the climax of this period.
The exploitation of all possible keys was something quite new, and it is in keeping with this fact that an impartial treatment of all twenty-four keys is to be found only in special collections such as those of Bach and Mattheson. And Mattheson, indeed, discussing the significance of the different keys in his work Das neu eröffnete Orchestre, 1713 (The Newly Established Orchestra) takes into consideration only seventeen. Among the more ‘distant’ keys, those with four or more accidentals, only those which were gradually becoming common are mentioned: E major, B major and F minor (the latter often in Dorian notation, i.e. the minor sixth receives no individual flat in the key-signature). As for Bach, while within his compositions he was not slow to exploit all the possibilities offered by the circle of fifths for purposes of modulation - indeed, a widening of the horizon in this respect is noticeable during the period of the Well-tempered Clavier’s composition - he continued to exercise a certain restraint in his choice of the initial key for a composition.
Illustrative of this restraint is his selection of keys in the two-part and three-part Inventions, which reached completion 1723, i.e. almost simultaneously with Part I of the Well-tempered Clavier. The choice of keys here is all the more instructive as the work is doubly related to the Well-tempered Clavier; it shares the educational purpose and a connection with the Clavier-Büchlein vor Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. In the Inventions, as in the Well-tempered Clavier, we find a succession of keys, beginning with C major and C minor and rising chromatically. In the former, however, the keys of C# / Db major, C# minor, Eb / D# minor, F# major, F# minor, Ab major, G# minor, Bb minor and B major are left out - both as being uncommon and (for this reason) of less immediate importance for instruction. The remaining keys are for the most part those commonly found elsewhere in Bach’s œuvre. Among the avoided keys mentioned above we will occasionally find Ab major, C# minor and F# minor, and these usually in connection with their more common relative keys; examples are the middle movements of the Sonatas and Concertos in F minor, E major and A major, together with a number of vocal works. B major and Eb minor occur once each, the one as ‘maggiore’ in the Partita in B minor, the other as ‘minore’ in the French Suite in Eb major. We must remember that such limitation remained typical for the whole of the eighteenth century and, indeed, towards its close an ever greater restraint in the employment of the twenty-four possible keys is noticeable; this was due to the change in musical style around 1750, which led to the preponderance of major keys with few accidentals over minor keys, particularly over keys with a battery of sharps.
In order to obtain the pieces he needed, Bach did not hesitate to transpose already existing pieces into a required distant key; a fact which both illustrates the unusualness of composition in such keys at that time and further demonstrates Bach's determination to produce in the Well-tempered Clavier first and foremost a cycle covering all keys without exception. This practice of transposition explains one or two oddities. The choice of C# major for the Preludes and Fugues I and II,3 - with seven sharps a ‘difficult’ notation in comparison with the five flats of Db major - is to be explained by the fact that Bach here was transposing pieces which originally stood in C major and with this notation could leave the original text unchanged. Similarly, the linking of Eb minor and D# minor in I,8 is due to the fact that the pieces are based on a Prelude in Eb minor from the Clavier-Büchlein and on a much earlier Fugue in D minor. As for the Preludes and Fugues in G# minor (I and II,18), these are easier on player and reader alike in the older version in G minor. Finally, in the Fugue in Ab major (II,17) the employment of the French violin clef instead of the treble clef (unique in the Well-tempered Clavier) - resulting in the transposition of the text by a third - points clearly to an original in F major. For the rest, while the Well-tempered Clavier contains all the "tones and semitones", it cannot be denied that Bach was considerably freer in his other works for keyboard instruments in his use of short-stretch modulation and the juxtaposition of different keys; and it has sometimes been said that in this respect, too, the whole collection is ‘wohltemperiert’, i.e. not just ‘well-tempered’ but also ‘temperate’, ‘moderate’.
When in 1802 Johann Nikolaus Forkel maintained that Bach claimed “all twenty-four keys as his own” and that he did with them “just as he liked”; when he claimed that Bach linked "the most distant keys as naturally and easily as the most obvious", so that "one thought he had modulated only within the inner circle of a single key", he took as his example the Chromatic Fantasia (c. 1720) - and not the Well-tempered Clavier. His example, however must be treated cautiously; the ‘fantastic’ progressions in that work, particularly in the ‘Recitative' section, (‘fantastic’ as implied in the term Fantasia) are something quite unique. In actual fact, when at the end of the eighteenth century and in the early nineteenth century harmony was mentioned in connection with Bach’s works (particularly in connection with the Well-tempered Clavier), what was generally meant was not so much the exploitation of all the possibilities of a chord or a chord progression, nor even the question of temperament - this was for the most part no longer a problem at the time; what was meant was rather the sublime artistry revealed in the technique of polyphonic writing, whereby each voice, taken alone, retained its individual character. It was this quality which led R. Schumann to speak of the "profoundly combinative character" in the works of Bach, and it is to be found primarily in the lofty art of fugue writing. Here Bach summed up the heritage of the past and carried it forward so far that hereafter his fugues formed the touchstone of the genre. Where, after Bach, a fugue was to be written, the composer’s eye rested - directly or indirectly, openly or in secret - on the standards which Bach’s work had set. And it was owing to his fugues that Bach’s music in the eighteenth and following centuries was considered the expression of a particular sort of musical intellectuality. Among the musically learned of the time, influenced as they were in their enlightened judgment by the new attitude towards art, some found this intellectuality too much; the majority, however paid it at least a half-hearted respect. As for later generations, in their eyes it was a major part of Bach’s claim to fame.
Yet precisely the forty-eight fugues of the Well-tempered Clavier show great variety in their structure and particularly in their character. While it is true that this has much to do with the genesis of both cycles, whereby a place was found for works of very different origins, a more important reason is that the fugue was not so much a form or a genre as a principle of composition which demanded a new realisation in each case. This contrasts with such works as the Suites for harpsichord; for there, to say nothing of the formal structure, the individual movements had their own typical, traditional rhythms; the tempo, though variable from case to case, was in principle prescribed; in some instances even the character of a piece was settled beforehand. In the fugue, on the other hand, only a very general plan was given. What is often called the strictness or stringency of the fugue refers less to a list of generally accepted, prescriptive rules than to the musically logical way in which the composer followed out the consequences of the particular rules he had set himself in each case. Apart from this, he was free to choose his number of voices (usually three or four) and to plan the lay-out with one or more subjects and countersubjects; the relationship of these to one another with regard to the order of entry and the intervening intervals he might determine at will and, more than this, there was a number of special techniques at his disposal. Among these were the ‘stretto’ (the Fugue in C major [I,1] offers a rich illustration of this), augmentation, diminution and inversion of the subject (the latter implies a mirror-like exchange of upward and downward movement in the subject).
From this it is clear that all purely formal analysis must remain inadequate where it fails to give due weight to the specific character of each fugue as it is determined in most instances by the subject. Not that formal analysis is lacking in fascination; least of all in such highly organised compositions, where insight into hidden structural principles seems to offer the key to the most profound comprehension of the work. ‘Specific character’ here is not to be confused with the usage of a later epoch which also spoke of ‘characteristic themes’. Here it has to do with the richly varied context in which the fugues of the Well-tempered Clavier are to be seen, and the subjects alone are often sufficent to give an idea of this. Here mention must be made first of the settings in sixteenth century ‘motet style’, a style which lived on in the ‘stylus antiquus’ of the baroque period and, long considered the basis of good musical craftsmanship, found its equivalent in instrumental music. Then there were the specifically instrumental types of fugue, a distinct group since the seventeenth century; and finally, the dance movements of the suites. (The influence was naturally reciprocal and the principles of composition in fugue writing were taken over in a variety of other forms, e. g. in the dance suites and in the concerto.)
The connection with dance movements is particularly evident in the case of the Gigue. This dance - in the early eighteenth century often composed in fugue style - has determined the character of the Fugue in F major (II,11). Similarly, other dances such as the Passepied provide the key to the Fugues in B minor (II,24) and in F major (I,11). It was the Gavotte, on the other hand, which gave its character to the Fugue in F# major (II,13); in the Fugue in D major (I,5) we see the influence of the slow part of the French Overture, as we know it from the beginning of Bach’s Suites for orchestra and the Partita in B minor for harpsichord. Then we have those fugues whose subjects point to a specifically instrumental fugue. This combined principles of imitative composition with the special resources which a keyboard instrument had to offer. Here again a number of possibilities were open. In the Fugues in A minor, G minor and Bb minor (I,20; II,16; II,22), for example, the emphasis lies on the exploitation of the manifold structural techniques.
In other cases, e. g. the Fugues in F# major and in G major (I,13; II,15), the employment of these techniques gives way to a freer development of the material. Those fugues, finally whose subjects are based on the ‘stylus antiquus’ of vocal polyphony (or better, on its adaption for instrumental purposes) concentrate upon the tradition of strict technical handwork. Examples are the Fugues in Bb minor and in Eb major (I,22; II,7) and particularly the Fugue in E major (II,9). The theme of the latter has a long history reaching back via Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer’s Ariadne Musica into the sixteenth century.
We have mentioned the relationship to different traditions and the employment of different fugal techniques; a further difference among the fugues lies in the number of voices employed. In Part I of the Well-tempered Clavier this varies between two and five. While the Fugue in E minor (I,10) has only two, the triple Fugue in C# minor (I,4) and the Fugue in Bb minor (I,22) have five voices; the two last mentioned have won a permanent reputation on account of the highly artistic treatment of their material. All the rest, including all those of the second collection, have either three or four voices. Much the same is the case with the number of expositions of the subject. The rule is three or four. But apart from a fugue with only two expositions, fugues with six are to be found. It is instructive to notice that when we group the fugues under such headings we find in each group works dating from different periods and in different styles. Thus, in the group with six expositions, we find two works of the early period, the Fugues in D# minor and in A minor (I,8; I,20), side by side with one of the most impressive works in Bach’s late style, that in Bb minor (II,22). Such groupings evidently have their limits. The question as to the essence of Bach’s fugues really demands an individual answer for each fugue; and the possibility of a ‘programme’ behind the forty-eight fugues, over and above the treatment of all the keys, must remain an open question; at the most, we may say that it was evidently Bach's aim to confront the great variety of forms which tradition had provided, with the principles of fugal composition, in this way to put the latter to the test and to exploit them to the full in ever new ways.
If variety is characteristic of the fugues, it is still more so of the preludes. This is largely due to the history of the prelude - if, indeed, we may speak of its ‘history’ at all, where the term was used for all sorts of forms up till Bach’s own time. The prelude, as the ‘introductory part’ was a matter of improvisation and not originally bound to any particular form; this we can see from fifteenth century manuscripts in which such pieces were written down. The result was that from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries on a whole variety of structural techniques found a home in the prelude, while improvisation was not excluded for a long time to come. In this variety of forms they might assume, the preludes resemble other free movements of the time, whatever formal titles they might carry, be it Fantasia, Toccata or Ricercar. The linking of prelude and fugue, a common and everyday practice since the Well-tempered Clavier, was really established for the first time by Bach, both in this work and in the immediately preceding compositions of the same form for organ and other keyboard instruments. There were, however, forerunners. Already Johann Caspar Ferdinand Fischer had reduced verset compositions to a succession of prelude and fugue. The 'Toccata-Fugue’, common in North Germany, is of still greater significance; this often combined elements of the toccata proper with those of the fugue, and its influence is perceptible in Bach’s early toccatas for organ and other keyboard instruments. At the time when the Well-tempered Clavier was composed the independence of prelude and fugue was still new and by no means a matter of rule. This is well illustrated by the Prelude in Eb major (I,7), an early composition, in which the prelude contains both prelude and fugue, quite independently of the fugue proper, which was probably composed extra for the collection. The new individuality, however, of prelude and fugue posed certain problems for the composition of new pieces for the collection. The prelude then had to be a self-contained piece, and yet still show some connection with the fugue, for which, after all, it was the ‘introductory part’. Bach here found a number of solutions. In some preludes there is evidently a similarity in the motifs used with those of the following fugue, e. g. the Preludes in C# minor and in F minor (I,4; I and II,12). In other cases only a more general and vague connection can be indicated. And in many instances no connection at all has been demonstrated with any plausibility.
The preludes, taken individually, offer examples of Bach’s instrumental style in all its variety. Here, too, movements are to be found which are related to the dance. The Preludes in C minor (II,2) and D# minor (II,8) for example, are related to the Allemande, the Prelude in E minor (II,10) to the Corrente. As well as these, there are strict two-part and three-part Inventions, similar to those in the collections e. g. the Preludes in A minor (II,20), in G# minor (I,18) and A major (I,19). The Pastorale is represented in the Preludes in E major and A major (I,9; II,19) and elements of the Sonata or even the Concerto are integrated in the Preludes in B minor (I,24) and in Ab major (I and II,17). There are Introductions based on no more than chords and fully written out arpeggi (I,1 in C major) as well as expansive Fantasias (II,4 in C# minor; II,14 in F# minor). Pieces are to be found here in Bach’s earliest Toccata style (I,21 in Bb major) and preludes in which the new three-part Sonata-form of the 1740’s is adopted (II,5 in D major; II,12 in F minor). The sharp contrasts to be found within both cycles as well as the variety of form is naturally due to the fact that the pairs - and sometimes even the constituent prelude and fugue within a pair - were composed at different periods. Part I has eleven preludes from the Clavier-Büchlein fur Wilhelm Friedemann Bach together with some early works; Part II contains compositions selected from a period of twenty years. This strengthens our impression that Bach did not have in mind a stylistic unity over and above the cyclic treatment of all the keys but rather was led by a desire to exploit in the preludes too, all the various possibilities which lay to hand here. And yet, here and there in the Well-tempered Clavier (both collections) there are isolated indications of an overall plan. Among these is the symmetry in the lay-out of both cycles; the twenty-four entries of the subject in the very first fugue (I,1) can perhaps be interpreted as a hint at the twenty-four keys to come. We must bear in mind, furthermore, that already existing compositions which were selected for the Well-tempered Clavier were revised and re-composed over large stretches; this is to be taken for something more than the result of a strict self-criticism on Bach’s part. A theory of self-criticism can hardly explain why such impressive pieces as the original Prelude in G major for II,15 should fall a victim to Bach's revision.
While it is owing to J. S. Bach’s work that the pair ‘Prelude and Fugue’ has become a standing term, there were few imitations of the Well-tempered Clavier in the eighteenth century and these could seldom bear comparison with Bach’s compositions. The reason is largely that the prelude and fugue as a suitable medium for baroque instrumental music had reached its culmination in the works of Bach. Already the generation of Bach’s sons were concentrating on new forms. And yet, unlike the majority of his works, the Well-tempered Clavier was never completely forgotten. To a large extent it formed the basis for estimations of Bach at the end of the eighteenth and in the early nineteenth century, at a time when the vocal works of the years in Arnstadt, Weimar and Leipzig were no more than a dim legend. Composers, like Mozart and Beethoven gave it their close attention and in this way it continued to be played and to hold its own as a unique piece of art.
Estimations of the work have naturally enough varied in accordance with current attitudes towards art; and this is no less true of performing styles. These have been particularly fluctuating in view of the fact that before the revival of the harpsichord  - and even thereafter - Bach was regularly played on the modern grand-piano and this offers quite individual interpretative possibilities. These were only increased by the long list of possibilities which modern harpsichords and historical instruments opened up. It is understandable that the attention paid to baroque music in the first half of this century should result in a rejection of the older notions, considered rather subjective and represented in numerous edited versions of the Well-tempered Clavier. In place of these, an unexaggerated and more sober interpretation of Bach’s keyboard works was developed.
The intensified study of baroque music within the last few decades, however, has shown that the instrumental music of that period, no less than other forms of music-making, was determined by rhetoric and a theory of the affections.
Gustav Leonhardt in the present interpretation is at pains to take this into account by means of a lively performance style, from which the structural clarity of the pieces can only benefit. This necessitates a departure from the ‘objective’ interpretation of baroque music (which still enjoys wide support to-day) in favour of ‘dynamic inégale playing’; this does justice to the character of each piece, inasmuch as it takes seriously the baroque demand for a performance which makes sense from a rhetorical point of view and is appropriate to the affections.
The recording is based on Leonhardt's own critical examination of the sources. ln Part II the readings given in Altnikol's copy are generally adopted.
The harpsichord used in the recording of Part I was constructed in 1972 by David Rubio and modelled on an instrument of Pascal Taskin. Part II is played on an instrument built in 1962 in Bremen by Martin Skowroneck; it is modelled on an instrument of Johannes Daniel Dulcken, Antwerp, dating from the year 1745.
The temperament is unequal with modifications for individual movements.
Wulf Arlt und Hans Joachim Theill