Prelude & Fugue No. 8 in E‑Flat Minor

Originally written for the education of Bach’s eldest son, Wilhelm Friedemann, the Prelude and Fugue No. 8 in E-Flat Minor reveals many clues about what the 11-year-old might have learned during his keyboard and composition lessons with his father. The Prelude shows both how to write for and play on a range of keyboard instruments—harpsichord, clavichord and organ—with a multi-purpose technique that extends well to the piano today. Expressively, the movement is about the communication of deep feeling. The speed is that of a slow sarabande, the style, that of an impassioned aria. Dignified melodic phrases are given mostly to the right hand (as the left accompanies), and intimacy is created through simplicity rather than decorative extravagance, as in the aria-like slow movement of the Italian Concerto. The simple elegance of the theme used for the following “Fugue” sustains the mood, and Bach demonstrates how to develop it by changing its speed and even turning it upside down. About J.S. Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier Book I If we had to choose the most influential of Bach’s works in the centuries since his death, the biggest votes would probably go to the St Matthew Passion and The Well-Tempered Clavier. The epithet “well-tempered” refers to “equal temperament”—a new method of tuning keyboard instruments, which made a wide range of keys available. Bach showed off these possibilities in two books of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys, which is why the collection is sometimes known as the “48”. Partly drawing on earlier works, Bach completed Book 1 around 1722 and Book 2 20 years later, constantly revising both. He intended the pieces to be useful to players of all types of keyboard instrument.