
Johann Sebastian Bach
Prelude & Fugue No.23 in B major
BWV892 • “The Well-tempered Clavier Book 2: Prelude & Fugue No. 23”
About this work
Part toccata, part common Handstück or didactic finger exercise, the prelude rolls smoothly along in an ornamental, galant style. The fugue, in contrast, sounds much more serious. It's a ricercar in four voices entering in ascending order, based, as is usual with this style of fugal writing, on a slow subject of widely spaced notes. A more animated countersubject accompanies each entry.