The Well-Tempered Clavier I — Fugue No. 9 in E major, BWV 854

About this work

The E major fugue from Book I of The Well-Tempered Clavier unfolds with an unusually songful clarity. Its subject is easy to recognise by its opening impulse and supple continuation. Locate each entry before combining the voices: the line becomes much more natural when the subject remains audible without a hard touch.

Practise the voice crossings slowly, then restore the movement while keeping the articulation light. Bring out each return of the subject without erasing the inner lines, and let cadences breathe without breaking the pulse.

What the document containsScoring: solo piano. The 2-page PDF contains the complete fugue.Source and rights: Knute Snortum’s engraving is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. Every page links back to LesPartitions.info.