Prelude No. 7 in E♭ major, Well-Tempered Clavier II (BWV 876)
Johann Sebastian Bach · Level 5 (Advanced) · Baroque · Piano
A peaceful pastoral prelude in 9/8, with ornamented lines answering each other over an undulating bass. From Book II of the Well-Tempered Clavier (around 1740), a second cycle of preludes and fugues in all twenty-four keys. E♭ major, 9/8, 71 bars (about 5 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 9/8, count the beats as groups of three eighths (dotted beats) to keep the lilt. For chords, shape the hand in the air before landing, all notes together. 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