page_title: The Well-Tempered Clavier
section_title: Content
hierarchical_section_title: The Well-Tempered Clavier / Content
caption_attribution_description: English: Early version of Prelude No. 1 in C major from The Well-Tempered Clavier, Volume 1, by Johann Sebastian Bach. This version is from the Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach.
context_page_description: The Well-Tempered Clavier, BWV 846–893, is a collection of two sets of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys, composed for solo keyboard by Johann Sebastian Bach. In Bach's time Clavier was a generic name indicating a variety of keyboard instruments, most typically a harpsichord or clavichord – but not excluding an organ.
  The modern German spelling for the collection is Das wohltemperierte Klavier. Bach gave the title Das Wohltemperirte Clavier to a book of preludes and fugues in all 24 major and minor keys, dated 1722, composed "for the profit and use of musical youth desirous of learning, and especially for the pastime of those already skilled in this study". Some 20 years later Bach compiled a second book of the same kind, which became known as The Well-Tempered Clavier, Part Two.
  Modern editions usually refer to both parts as The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I and The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II, respectively. The collection is generally regarded as being among the most important works in the history of classical music.
context_section_description: Each Prelude is followed by a Fugue in the same key. In each book the first Prelude and Fugue is in C major, followed by a Prelude and Fugue in its parallel minor key (C minor). Then all keys, each major key followed by its parallel minor key, are followed through, each time moving up a half tone: C → C♯ → D → E♭ → E → F → F♯ → ... ending with ... → B♭ → B.
caption: Early version BWV 846a (1720) of the first prelude of the first book, as written down by Bach in his eldest son's notebook
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