Happy birthday to Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier!

Is there anyone who hasn’t heard at least one of the preludes and fugues that make up Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier? Probably not!

In 1722, 300 years ago, the Leipzig Cantor composed the first part of his famous Wohltemperierte Klavier (BWV 846-869). The second book (BWV 870-893) was published 22 years later, in 1744. The title page of the autograph of the first book states the composer’s intention: “Le clavier bien tempéré, ou préludes et fugues dans tous les tons et demi-tons […] pour l’utilité et l’usage de la jeunesse musicale avide d’apprendre, ainsi que pour la jouissance de ceux qui sont déjà rompus à cet art”. Bach’s primary aim with this collection was educational, didactic and pedagogical.

And this didactic work travels through time and around the world. Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Liszt, Busoni, as well as the great pianists of our time and countless student pianists past and present: everyone has admired, practiced and confronted this monumental work.

But what makes this collection such a success? The comprehensiveness and combination of countless musical forms and pianistic styles are undoubtedly two of the main reasons.

On the one hand, each of the two books presents 24 preludes and fugues, a prelude and a fugue for each major and minor key. The 12 semitones of the chromatic scale from C to B are thus systematically covered. On the other hand, the preludes illustrate the different types of keyboard composition of the late Baroque period, with their incredible melodic, rhythmic and counterpoint variety. As for the fugues, they encapsulate all the possibilities of monothematic fugue writing: the ancient ricercare, the use of inversion, canon and augmentation, the virtuosity of a fugue with a “da capo” finale, and many other styles.

In this masterpiece, no two preludes or fugues are alike!

Bach did not specify a performance instrument. “Keyboard” meant all the keyboard instruments common at the time: harpsichord, clavichord and organ. The latter is probably excluded, however, as the compositions are clearly adapted to the performer’s two hands, without feet.

What does “well-tempered” mean? In Bach’s time, “well-tempered” meant any temperament, any tuning, that allowed playing in all keys. And this without dissonances too abrupt for the ear. Instruments did not follow a standard tuning system, as is the case today. There were several. The aim of the Well-Tempered Clavier was precisely to practice playing in all keys, ensuring that the right temperament allowed for all modulations. But neither did the German composer clearly specify the temperament for which he intended his work. According to some specialists, Bach wanted to support a particular type of temperament that would be the father of modern “equal temperament”.

Bach’s writing in the Well-Tempered Clavier represents the culmination of a 20-year process of maturation, and is without equal in the history of music.