There is a collection of 12 preludes “12 Little Preludes” and I have recorded all of them carrier. In the past I put them all together in one playlist, but I think that was too much for anyone. So now I am presenting them one by one. All you need to know is that Bach wrote a bazillion number of preludes, and the quality of them ranges from good to excellent to superb.
The BWV numbers are simply an attempt to put all this music in chronological order. Those letters are a German abbreviation for “Bach Works Catalog”.
This catalog is better than nothing but can easily lead to the assumption that we have a very good idea about when Bach composed all his music, and that is an illusion for the most part. This group was published in the order that you see below on the right. In other words, they are totally out of chronological order, there is a gap between BWV 930 and BWV 939.
Those missing numbers are all preludes and most of them are in a separate collection.
Then there is a huge gap between BWV 941 and BWV 999. In that second gap are mostly a bunch of fugues, and towards the end apparently there is other music for lute. Then BWV 999 actually was written for lute and not for keyboard. The choice of preludes and their order in the book is totally confusing and very puzzling.
BWV 924 C major 12 Little Preludes #1
BWV 925 D major 12 Little Preludes #4
BWV 926 D minor 12 Little Preludes #5
BWV 927 F major 12 Little Preludes #8
BWV 928 F major 12 Little Preludes #9
BWV 929 G minor 12 Little Preludes #10
BWV 930 G minor 12 Little Preludes #11
BWV 939 C major 12 Little Preludes #2
BWV 940 D minor 12 Little Preludes #6
BWV 941 E minor 12 Little Preludes #7
BWV 999 C minor 12 Little Preludes #3