Prelude & Fugue No. 14 in F-Sharp Minor

Chalk and cheese—this is one of Bach’s many creatively paired preludes and fugues. You need to arrive at the end of the piece before you can look back on the journey and realize what musical lesson Bach is teaching here. Although he didn’t leave any written clues, the secret is clearly in the style. Or rather, the mismatch of styles. The Prelude in F-Sharp Minor is extrovert with plenty of rapid, sociable imitation between the two hands. Bach’s pleasing patterns of notes and neat, regular phrases have a distinctly modern feel. The fugue, on the other hand, is a study in intimacy, with pleasure taken in the slow unfolding of ideas, and subtle micro movements of the melody (chromaticism) wholly replacing grand gestures. While the fashionable Prelude patters away purposefully and passes in an instant, the retro Fugue creeps circuitously and unpredictably, drawing us in and making us listen all the more closely. 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.