Well known (and loved) Bb Major

Now here is a P&F I know well, and have taught several times, and have extensive notes not only from teaching but also a master class in which a student played.  It’s a grand selection for students setting out on the Well Tempered Clavier: bravura and exciting (and important-sounding) without being too difficult, not a bad key signature, 3 voice fugue with clear sections, and neither prelude nor fugue exceeds two pages.  A gift from Bach to your student!  Pictured is the opening measures of the prelude with years of scrawled notes competing for the music notes.  One really nice thing to point out to students (and ourselves in a quiet moment): Prelude’s measures 11 and 12 have a descending scalar passage that begins in C harmonic minor, then passes into C major, then C natural minor, and finally (breaking the rule of what melodic minor is) C melodic minor with the lowered sixth and seventh in the descending pattern (it’s the ascending pattern when we play scales, but then, who is going to wake up JSB and correct him).  Fun to hear, fun to play, fun to understand.  Cheers.