Twelve Little Preludes

Collections of short keyboard preludes by Johann Sebastian Bach had been around since the 18th century. For instance the Six Little Preludes, BWV 933–938 are found as a group of six in manuscripts before they were published as a set in the 19th century. The Twelve Little Preludes are however a 19th-century compilation extracted from two manuscripts, the Klavierbüchlein für Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, and the composite manuscript P 804 (known as the Kellner Collection) of the Berlin State Library, both with dozens of works by various composers and written down by multiple known and unknown scribes. The date of origin of the pieces in the Twelve Little Preludes collection is presumed to be around the first half of the 1720s, that is the period of Bach's later years in Köthen and his first years in Leipzig, where he had become Thomaskantor in 1723. In January 1720 he had started the Klavierbüchlein (keyboard-booklet) for his eldest son Wilhelm Friedemann, who was nine years old at that time. ) • BWV 924 (No. 2 in the Klavierbüchlein) → Twelve Little Preludes No. 1 • BWV 925 (No. 27 in the Klavierbüchlein) → Twelve Little Preludes No. 4 • BWV 926 (No. 4 in the Klavierbüchlein) → Twelve Little Preludes No. 5 • BWV 927 (No. 8 in the Klavierbüchlein) → Twelve Little Preludes No. 8 • BWV 928 (No. 10 in the Klavierbüchlein) → Twelve Little Preludes No. 9 • BWV 929 (No. 48e in the Klavierbüchlein) → Twelve Little Preludes No. 10 • BWV 930 (No. 9 in the Klavierbüchlein) → Twelve Little Preludes No. 11 BWV 925 may have been composed by Wilhelm Friedemann (it has the number BR A 45 in the catalogue of the compositions of that composer). BWV 929 is not actually a Prelude: it is a Trio composed for a Minuet by Gottfried Heinrich Stölzel. All other pieces extracted from W. F. Bach's Klavierbüchlein are titled "Praeambulum" or "Praeludium" (both Latin expressions translated as "Prelude") in the manuscript. Together with BWV 931 and 932 (Nos. 29 and 28 in the Klavierbüchlein) this set is also known as (nine little preludes from the keyboard-booklet for Wilhelm Friedemann Bach). Other preludes contained in the Klavierbüchlein: • BWV 939 (Five Little Preludes No. 1) This prelude was added as No. 3 to the Twelve Little Preludes. Its composition date is estimated as 1717–23. Its 18th-century manuscript, Fascicle 19 of P 804, is a copy by Johann Peter Kellner, produced around the middle of the 1720s or later. ==Publication==

Peters published the Twelve Little Preludes in 1843 as "Douze petits Préludes ou Exercices pour les commençans", No. 16 in their 9th volume of Bach's complete (keyboard) works, edited by Friedrich Konrad Griepenkerl. Both this edition and pages 118 to 127 of Volume 36 of the Bach Gesellschaft edition, published in 1890, contained the pieces in this order: • BWV 924 – Prelude in C major (Klavierbüchlein No. 2: "Praeambulum"; Nine Little Preludes No. 1) ==Reception==

Collections of Bach's Little Preludes were republished as didactical material for starting piano students, for instance at the Conservatoire Royal de Bruxelles. Ferruccio Busoni combined the Twelve Little Preludes and the Six Little Preludes in a set of 18 kleine Präludien (18 Short Preludes), followed by the Fughetta, BWV 961, which were published as part of the Bach-Busoni Editions in 1916 . When Wolfgang Schmieder compiled the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis (first published in 1950) he split the Twelve Little Preludes in three BWV number ranges: BWV 924–930 for the Klavierbüchlein preludes (as part of the Nine Little Preludes, BWV 924–932), BWV 939–942 for the P 804 Fascicle 53 preludes (as part of the Five Little Preludes, BWV 939–942) and BWV 999 in the range of the works for lute (BWV 995–1000). Nonetheless, instead of following the collation of the original manuscripts for the keyboard works, he adhered to the 19th-century Twelve Little Preludes collation for both keyboard ranges and kept the "Trio" BWV 929 listed as a prelude in his catalogue. while other editors stayed closer to the collation in the 18th-century sources and/or that of the Bach-Werke-Verzeichnis for their presentation of Bach's short piano pieces. Also in the 21st century the Twelve Little Preludes set kept repertoire. ==References==