- Hi.
The great Johann Sebastian Bach
set about one particular project
that's come to be known as the 48 preludes and fugues,
sometimes now known as The Well-Tempered Clavier.
Now, actually, in reality, what Bach did was
to write two sets of 24 preludes and fugues,
and the idea behind the whole scheme was
to write one prelude and fugue in each major key,
and one prelude and fugue in each minor key.
That made up book one of the 48 preludes and fugues,
the first 24, and then he did the whole thing over again,
but the second time was about 20 years later
than the first set.
So the first set came out in 1722,
and it's from that set that we're going to focus
in this little course, and we're going to look
at the prelude and fugue in F-sharp minor,
known as BWV 859, and as I'm sure you know,
BWV is always the reference that is used
for works by Bach.
No other composer uses BWV.
Most composers used opus numbers.
Mozart uses K numbers, Kochel numbers.
Scarlatti's got his own KP, or L numbers.
Most people have opus numbers.
Bach has BWV numbers.
So, very useful to get hold of a score of this piece,
if you haven't already got one,
before we start working through an analysis of the piece.
So it's BWV 859,
and it's prelude and fugue number 14
from the first book of the 48 preludes and fugues,
or The Well-Tempered Clavier.
Now, clavier is a kind of general name
that literally means keyboard,
so we're not entirely sure what Bach's intention was,
but we tend to think of these as pieces for the harpsichord,
but they may well have been played
in homes on the clavichord,
a rather quieter, more contained instrument,
but there's nothing to say, for example,
that these pieces couldn't be played on the organ.
There's no specific pedal lines,
so it's more likely to be harpsichord music,
but they can work very effectively on the organ,
and we just don't know if that was perhaps one
of the intentions for them.
And they were certainly designed for study purposes,
though, of course, they're not particularly easy to play,
in many cases, so we're talking about a student
who's already got fairly decent keyboard skills,
but they're also designed as works in their own right
that could be performed by anyone.
It's a fantastic collection.
In terms of this well-tempered bit,
just what we mean by that is also a matter
of a little debate.
I mean, well-tempered might mean even-tempered,
which means that the distance
between each semitone is exactly equal,
so if we're dealing with equal temperament,
that's what we mean.
We're not entirely sure
that really that's what Bach meant by well-tempered,
but we won't get too bogged down in that.
It may well be that, if it was an even temperament,
in other words, these distances
between the semitones are all equal,
then in fact, each one of those preludes
and fugues is going to sound the same,
i.e. all the major key preludes
and fugues will sound the same in terms of tonality,
and all the minor preludes and fugues will sound the same
in terms of tonality, but it is possible
that he was dealing in a different kind of temperament
in which each key would've had
it's own slightly different personality.
So that's kind of, the jury is still out on that one,
but that's a bit of background
as to what we mean by well-tempered,
and clavier, for the keyboard.
So, what we're going to do in this course is have a look
at the prelude, work out how it's structured,
work out what the musical devices are
that are being employed,
and how he puts that prelude together.
We're then going to look at the fugue
partly as a means to understand how a fugue works
through understanding how this particular fugue works,
and we'll go through the detail of how that's structured,
and what the characteristics are of the piece.
And if you're preparing for an exam,
and you're wanting some background on this piece,
hopefully, this course will be particularly useful to you.
If you're just wanting to kind of tune into the preludes
and fugues through a particular example,
this will be useful to you as well.
If you're wanting to do some structural,
and thematic, and harmonic analysis,
then this film will be useful to you for that as well,
and if you just want to appreciate the music
from the inside, hopefully,
this will pick up some insights
that will help your appreciation of the music.
So, that's a brief introduction,
and in the next film, we're going to get straight
into having a look at the prelude.