Well-Tempered Clavier, Book I: Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846

The opening prelude of the Well-Tempered Clavier is perhaps the simplest thing Bach ever wrote, and perhaps the most quietly radical. It consists entirely of broken chords — the notes of each harmony spread out across the measure in a consistent, arpeggiated pattern, a single figure repeated and transposed through a sequence of twenty-four different harmonies before returning home. There is no melody in the traditional sense, no rhythm beyond that steady ripple of sixteenth notes, no counterpoint, no ornamentation. And yet the piece is hypnotic, even moving — as the harmonies shift, one by one, through brightness and shadow and back to brightness again, something in the listener responds to the logic of the progression, the feeling of a story told entirely through color. Gounod added a melody on top and called it "Ave Maria," which tells you something about the prelude's quality of patient openness. Bach wrote the Well-Tempered Clavier partly as a demonstration that a newly tuned keyboard system could function in all twenty-four major and minor keys — a theoretical point that changed Western music permanently. But this prelude needs no context to work. It is music that feels like sitting beside moving water, watching light change on a surface. Begin here if you are beginning with Bach.