Let’s be honest – G-sharp minor is annoying. The five sharps of the key continually tie your fingers in knots. The prelude, played here by harpsichordist Christine Schornsheim, therefore belongs irrevocably in the domain of advanced musicians, whereas if it had been written in G minor, for example, it could clearly have been a hit with the masses. Because although Bach’s ideas are actually quite obvious – simple leaps in the left hand and elegant little sighs in the right – he succeeds in creating maximum effect. The fugue shows Bach at his most architectural and most contrapuntal. It’s old-school Baroque, and nobody should forget who its master was!

Twenty years after his first collection of music in every key imaginable, Bach completed a second 'Wohltemperirte Clavier'. We recorded his first book of Preludes and Fugues at the homes of 24 different musicians. For this second part, performed in its entirety by Christine Schornsheim, we chose 12 very different locations in Utrecht, to celebrate the 900th anniversary of our home city.

Recorded for the project All of Bach on on 11 September 2022 at HKU Utrechts Conservatorium, Utrecht, the Netherlands. If you want to help us complete All of Bach, please subscribe to our channel https://bit.ly/2vhCeFB and consider donating https://bit.ly/3J5uprM.

For the interview with Christine Schornsheim on the Wohltemperirte Clavier II and the process of recording this in its entirety, see    • Schornsheim on the Well-Tempered Clav...  
For more information on BWV 887 and this production go to https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/bwv/...

All of Bach is a project of the Netherlands Bach Society, offering high-quality film recordings of the works by Johann Sebastian Bach, performed by the Netherlands Bach Society and its guest musicians. Visit our free online treasury for more videos and background material on https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/allo.... For concert dates and tickets go to https://www.bachvereniging.nl/en/conc....

Christine Schornsheim, harpsichordist
Harpsichord: Bruce Kennedy, 1989 after Michael Mietke

0:00 Prelude
4:54 Fugue