This is one of the easiest pieces in all of the WTC, both technically and expressively. It is mostly in two voices, fits the hands well, and unspools at an extremely even keel. Despite its simplicity, I’ve never found it boring to play or hear. The slow ascending sequences in mm. 0:12-0:18 and 1:49-1:55 have a sort of quiet urgency to them. There is also a lot of small- and medium scale chromaticism that makes the piece sound a bit sinister. . . or at least like it is “up to something.”

Performance notes:

As in many suite movements written in plain textures, Bach adds voices to thicken the texture at the cadences that close both of the major sections. Getting these right takes a fair amount of pre-planning; to keep the music at 0:38-39 smooth without using the pedal, I turn my right hand over to play the final Eb chord with fingers 2, 4, and 5.

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