ABSTRACT
Th e Well-Tempered Clavier (WTC) is probably Bach’s most famous keyboard work. Th is was already true during the half-century aft er his death; dozens of manuscript copies survive from that period, and the publication of three editions at the beginning of the nineteenth century was one of the fi rst manifestations of the so-called Bach Revival.1 No doubt the work’s novel organization and its usefulness as a sort of textbook in composition and keyboard performance furthered its popularity at a time when manuals on fugue and other theoretical writings on music were being issued with increasing frequency. Bach’s personal fame as a keyboard player as well as that of his pupils must also have encouraged the work’s dissemination; other Bach keyboard works were available, but the WTC may have seemed a sort of offi cial compendium of examples by a player of unparalleled ability and a master of the arcane art of strict counterpoint.
