Hyperion Records

The magnificent Praeludium in C major, BuxWV137 (known to English-speaking organists as the ‘Prelude, Fugue and Chaconne in C’), is among the best known of the praeludia. The first section, improvisatory in character, begins with a pedal solo, embraces a variety of textures, and includes a number of dramatic gestures. The brief subject of the fugal section seems to grow out of the second bar of the pedal solo, and its final entry (at bar 64) leads without a break into a short improvisatory passage. Marked Presto, the Ciacona, with which the work concludes, is founded on eight statements of a jovial three-bar ground derived from the fugue subject.

from notes by Relf Clark © 2012