Prelude in D minor
BWV 926 performed by Adriel González
Maltezerhuis, Utrecht
Behind the music
Story
Story
Extra videos
Extra videos
Credits
Credits
Step by step
A practice piece for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, officially by his father’s hand
The word ‘minuet’ is thought to derive from ‘menu pas’, which is French for ‘little step’. The French Baroque dance in triple time remained popular throughout Europe until well into the nineteenth century. The origin of the dance can be pinpointed quite accurately: it was the favourite dance at the court of Louis XIV. Around 1650, the branle, a popular sixteenth-century folk dance, grew to become the courtly menuet de Poitou, a quick dance for couples that soon spread from the radiant court of the Sun King to take salons, stages and composers by storm.
Short and sweet: in a minuet, the dancers trace the shape of a letter S or Z in three concise phrases, each time turning gracefully to present their right hands to one another, then their left hands and finally both hands. And precisely because the minuet is so concise and simple, many composers wrote two at once, for example in major and minor, with a repetition of the first to round it off. See, for instance, numerous suites, sonatas, concertos and operas.
Bach notated this short minuet for his little son Wilhelm Friedemann in the ‘Klavierbüchlein’, a music book to start off his keyboard studies in 1720. The goal of the Büchlein was twofold: to generate virtuosity and to stimulate creativity, so it contains pieces by both father and son.
BWV 926 is found in a cluster of twelve ‘little preludes’ and we know for certain – which is a rarity in research into Bach – that it is by J.S. himself, as the manuscript has all sorts of corrections in his handwriting. The runs of quick semiquavers just before the end and the continual arpeggios (chords where the notes are heard after one another, rather than all together – ed.) indicate a third skill that every Baroque musician needed to master: improvisation.
Young talent
Once every two or three years, the Netherlands Bach Society organises a talent development project for gifted young musicians under the age of 18. The projects, which focus on the performance practice of Bach’s music, allows us to bring talented youngsters into contact with historical performance practice and give them deeper insight into Bach’s music. In this talent development project, we worked with keyboardists of the future. Seven very talented international youngsters between twelve and eighteen years old were selected from auditions to take two masterclasses about Bach, the harpsichord and baroque playing techniques and styles, given by Siebe Henstra. Each keyboardist rehearsed movements from the Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, including the Nine Little Preludes, BWV 924-932, which Bach wrote to use in lessons with his son Wilhelm Friedemann. The rehearsed works were recorded for All of Bach in October 2024, at the Maltezerhuis in Utrecht.
- BWV
- 926
- Title
- Prelude in D minor
- Epithet
- Paeludium 2
- Instrument
- harpsichord
- Genre
- harpsichord works
- Serie
- Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach
- Year
- 1720
Extra videos
Vocal texts
Original
Translation
Credits
-
- Release date
- 17 July 2025
-
- Recording date
- 16 October 2024
-
- Location
- Maltezerhuis, Utrecht
-
- Harpsichord
- Adriel González
-
- Instrument
- Titus Crijnen, 1992 after Johannes Ruckers, 1638
-
- Director and camera
- Robin van Erven-Dorens
-
- Music recording
- Guido Tichelman, Pim van der Lee
-
- Music recording, edit and mix
- Guido Tichelman
-
- Camera
- Martijn van Beenen
-
- Lights
- Ernst-Jan Thieme
-
- Data handling
- Brechtje van Riel
-
- Assistant music recording
- Marloes Biermans
-
- Producer
- Lisanne Marlou de Kok
Discover
Help us to complete All of Bach
There are still many recordings to be made before the whole of Bach’s oeuvre is online. And we can’t complete the task without the financial support of our patrons. Please help us to complete the musical heritage of Bach, by supporting us with a donation!