896b J. S. Bach Prelude and fugue in A major, BWV 896 Christian Rieger, harpsichord Ao B

this early keyboard work, probably written when Bach was sixteen, is perfect in its simplicity. The Prelude, in particular, has an almost naive beauty. The little recapitulation at the end is distinctive, as the final cadence is played twice, lending a resigned character to the whole. The Fugue has also survived separately, and it is uncertain whether these two pieces were actually conceived as a whole by Bach. In any case, the Fugue is more ambitious in structure than the Prelude. Bach barely leaves the key of A major, thereby placing the emphasis on the distinctive theme. Here, Bach exhausts all the possibilities and then continues for a while at the point where other composers would probably have finished off. Even at an early age, he was making contrapuntal mastery his trademark.