J.S. Bach: The Well-Tempered Clavier Part 1 (Urtext)

The Well-Tempered Clavier was the title given to the book of twenty-four preludes and fugues in all the major and minor keys, which was composed and compiled during Bach’s appointment in Kothen in 1722. Bach later wrote a further twenty-four preludes and fugues and so the forty-eight preludes and fugues eventually became collectively known as the Well-Tempered Clavier Parts 1 And 2.

Bach composed the Well-Tempered Clavier Part 1 ‘for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning, and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this study.’ Even today these forty-eight preludes and fugues remain a necessity to all advancing pianists wishing to develop, secure and perfect technique and technical control.

The Well-Tempered Clavier is a major work, of great breadth and depth and musical, aesthetic, and psychological diversity and complexity. This Urtext edition, edited by Ernst-Gunter Heinemann and fingered by Andras Schiff, provides you with an accurate realisation of the composer’s original intentions, with thorough and detailed editorial markings and suggestions.