The 16th P&F of WTCI by Bach is one of the most formulaic of the 48. The prelude has some imitative material, but it is primarily a comforting, wistful and evocative piece, beautiful to hear or play. The fugue maintains the same thoughtful melancholy but in a standard fugue format, only slightly varying the subject with each iteration, and most of the time varying it not at all — a seamlessly sewn together miniature masterpiece. Easy key signature, the four voices of the fugue present no anxious convolutions for the fingers, absolutely playable and satisfying to the ear. The images above are from Jean Pierre Lecaudey’s website, and he has done a nice job of marking the subjects (as have all us pianists in theory class). You can check out his entire article — and test your French — here.
At the rate this project is moving, I’ll be done with both books before August is half over! Time for a fermata in the project; see you in a few days.