Prelude No. 19 in A major, Well-Tempered Clavier II (BWV 888)

Johann Sebastian Bach · Level 5 (Advanced) · Baroque · Piano

A light, smiling three-voice prelude in 12/8, written like a sinfonia. From Book II of the Well-Tempered Clavier (around 1740), a second cycle of preludes and fugues in all twenty-four keys. A major, 12/8, 33 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.
• Practise each hand alone until you can sing it, then put them together slowly in Wait mode; the edition’s ornaments are not written here. In 12/8, count the beats as groups of three eighths (dotted beats) to keep the lilt. 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