G Major: Bach’s key of virtuosity, celebration, exuberance (with his occasional contented reflections on mortality.) The passion music and death in the previous prelude and fugue is conquered by this G Major set, BWV 860 from The Well-Tempered Clavier Book One. The fugue is a brilliant model of contrapuntal technique.

The three-voice fugue begins:

But after only a few bars, Bach is ready to bring in all the voices again— this time with the melodies upside down. (Inverted exposition.) N.B. The middle voice’s theme began on the previous page:

And there are stretti in this fugue, one melody interrupting another. Here’s one where the themes are rhythmically shifted to the second half of the bar:

The prelude is equally joyous. The earliest version of this prelude is a mere 15 bars long, compared to the 19 bars of the latest version. Notice, too, how Bach changed the key signature of only one (!) staff. The earliest version reads:

But later, on the top staff, Bach changes it to 24/16 (!) in the fair copy, P. 415:

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