Fugue No. 5 in D major, Well-Tempered Clavier II (BWV 874)
Johann Sebastian Bach · Level 6 (Expert) · Baroque · Piano
A four-voice fugue famous for its strettos: a sober, almost vocal subject that the voices stack ever more tightly. From Book II of the Well-Tempered Clavier (around 1740), a second cycle of preludes and fugues in all twenty-four keys. A 4-voice fugue. D major, 2/2, 50 bars (about 3 minutes), complete score.
▶ Play this piece with the interactive score
How to practise it
- Listen first: the site plays it while the score scrolls.
- Wait mode: the score waits for you at every note, at your own pace.
- Tempo challenge: play in time, with a score and a map of the bars you got right.
- Find every entry of the subject and bring it out; practise the voices two by two, then decide which hand takes the inner voices before putting it together slowly. One hand sometimes plays two voices: hold the long notes for their full value and let the main line sing louder than the accompaniment. Start hands separately in Wait mode, then put hands together at a slow tempo before speeding up gradually.
More pieces by Johann Sebastian Bach
- Partita 4 (BWV 828) — movement 6
- Aus meines Herzens Grunde (Chorale 1) (BWV 269)
- Two-Part Invention No. 1 in C major (BWV 772)
- Prelude No. 1 in C major, Well-Tempered Clavier I (BWV 846)
- Two-Part Invention No. 13 in A minor (BWV 784)
- Two-Part Invention No. 8 in F major (BWV 779)
- Little Prelude in F major (BWV 928)
- Two-Part Invention No. 4 in D minor (BWV 775)
Source : Knute Snortum (gravure LilyPond, GitHub) · CC BY-SA 4.0