Bach's Well-tempered Clavier:The 48 Preludes and Fugues.(Book Review)(Brief Article)

by David Ledbetter. Yale University Press (P.O. Box 209040, New Haven, CT 06520-9040), 2002. 352 pp., $40.

Bach's magnum pedagogical opus--a goldmine of contrapuntal wizardry, keyboard challenges and characterful music. It has found its way to the music rack of virtually every keyboard-playing musician since Bach first gathered his 48 Preludes and Fugues into two volumes in 1722 and 1744 respectively.

David Ledbetter, senior lecturer at Manchester's Royal Northern College of Music in the United Kingdom, has added significantly to the literature on the Well-tempered Clavier with his recent monograph. Ledbetter is a specialist in early music, a harpsichordist, historian and composer, with other writings including Harpsichord and Lute Music in 17th-Century France (Macmillan, 1987) and Continuo Playing According to Handel (Oxford University Press, 1990).

The first section of the book takes as its springboard Bach's 1722 fair copy title-page to Volume One, which lays out the work's contents, intended audience and purpose in the typically thorough manner of the day. Ledbetter leads the reader through a learned and well-researched historical consideration of each element of Bach's title page: "Clavier" (instruments), "Well-Tempered" (tuning systems), "Preludes and Fugues" (history and types), "All the Tones and Semitones" (earlier cycles) and "Bach as Teacher."

This is not an easy read, nor is it addressed to the novice musician who knows little about points of musical debate during the baroque era. Plenty of ...