Johann Sebastian Bach — The Well-Tempered Clavier I, Volume 1 — Notebook

The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I, in Bach's own hand. Then pages of your own.

The document

In 1722, at the court of Köthen, Bach wrote out twenty-four preludes and fugues, a pair in every major and minor key, as a fair copy for his pupils to copy from. More copies were made of it than of any other work of his, and he went on correcting it into the 1740s. The autograph is kept today at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin. This notebook reproduces his title page and the first twelve preludes and fugues, C major to F minor, in order.

Inside the notebook

First, a short guide: what well-tempered meant in 1722; Köthen, and the portrait Elias Gottlob Haussmann painted of Bach in 1748; the title page in its six parts, translated line by line; how to read his score; the little keyboard book Bach began for his son Wilhelm Friedemann; and the inks and second thoughts of a fair copy that was never final.

Then the manuscript: leaves 2 verso to 25 recto, each verso facing the recto that follows it, every leaf at the same scale, 87% of its size.

Then the pages are yours: 58 pages of staff paper, six systems of two staves to a page, ruled at the size and spacing of the staves Bach wrote on.

A4, spiral-bound, it lies flat. This is the first of two volumes; the second follows the surviving second half, F-sharp major to B minor.

Johann Sebastian Bach · Das Wohltemperirte Clavier, Book I · autograph · 1722–23 · Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Mus.ms. Bach P 415