Johann Sebastian Bach

The Art of the Fugue Bwv 1080: Edited for Solo Keyboard by Carl Czerny (Dover Music for Piano) Johann Sebastian Bach

Uniquely complex in both form and structure, this work by J. S. Bach is regarded as a pinnacle of Western music. No composer possessed a greater understanding of the workings of counterpoint than Bach. In The Art of the Fugue, he summarizes counterpoint's entire known potential by using a very simple theme in the most complex possible ways.
This work proved to be Bach's last, and the composer left the nature of its instrumentation undocumented. Despite numerous popular interpretations?including harpsichord, organ, string quartet, and orchestra?speculation persists that Bach intended it purely as an elaborate intellectual exercise. C. P. E. Bach declared its primary value as that of a teaching aid and a guide to composition. This solo keyboard edition was edited by Carl Czerny, a student of Beethoven and teacher of Liszt, who wrote hundreds of piano études that remain staples of piano training today. Modern pianists will find Czerny's edition of this classic a source of unfailing variety and limitless imagination.