Prelude No. 1 BWV 846

The Anacrouse collection offers pianists, beginners and advanced alike, a wide choice of classical works from the Renaissance to the present day. It brings together major works of the repertoire as well as rarer pieces, and also offers transcriptions for piano solo or four hands, selected for their musical and educational interest. Each score, available individually, benefits from careful editorial work: a rigorously established musical text, clear and legible engraving, accompanied by a short biography of the composer and a note on the work.

The “Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846” is a monumental work in its purity and serenity. The first piece of the Well-Tempered Clavier, it is a fundamental study in arpeggios and evenness of touch. For the student, it is an ideal exercise for working on the balance between the hands, harmonic direction and the management of resonances, while approaching the notion of phrasing within a continuous flow.

Composed by Johann Sebastian Bach for pedagogical purposes, this prelude has crossed the centuries to the point of becoming the foundation of Charles Gounod’s Ave Maria in the 19th century. Its structure, based solely on broken chords, conceals a science of harmony so perfect that it remains today the absolute reference for an introduction to counterpoint and musical construction.