Little Prelude in D major, BWV 936
D major's brightness - a prelude in fanfare mode.
In Baroque keyboard music, D major was associated with trumpets and ceremonial brightness - the key of royal fanfares and celebratory concertos. BWV 936 picks up that energy at a keyboard scale: the right-hand figures are wide-spanning and declarative, the harmony moves with confident steps through D major's closest relatives, and even the cadences feel like small flourishes rather than arrivals. Paired in the collection with its D-minor neighbor, the contrast is instructive: same tonic pitch, radically different affect.
The piece likely dates from Bach's Cöthen period (1717-1723) when he was composing prolifically for keyboard and producing much of the pedagogical repertoire associated with his children's education. Its cheerful brevity made it a perennial favorite in keyboard anthologies for the next two centuries.
Let the wide intervals ring - resist clipping them short.
The wide-spanning figures in the right hand tempt players to shorten the longer notes to prepare for the next leap. Resist this: hold each note its full value and let the hand travel in the air, arriving precisely on the next note. This gives the piece its fanfare-like breadth.
Engraving based on the Mutopia Project edition , licensed CC BY-SA 3.0.
MIDI based on the Mutopia Project edition , licensed CC BY-SA 3.0.
Before you practice.
01 How does Bach's Little Prelude BWV 936 differ from BWV 935?
BWV 936 is in D major and introduces clearer two-voice imitation, which makes it slightly more demanding musically than the single-melody style of some earlier Little Preludes. It sits at late-beginner rather than early-beginner level.
02 What does BWV 936 prepare a student for?
It is a natural stepping stone toward Bach's Two-Part Inventions - particularly the D major and D minor inventions - because it uses the same imitative two-voice texture in a shorter, more forgiving format.
Practice the large leaps in isolation before tempo work.
Extract any measure with a span larger than an octave and practice the hand position shift - stop, place, play - ten times before attempting it at speed. At 80% tempo, the leaps should feel choreographed rather than grabbed. The loop tool makes it easy to repeat just those measures repeatedly.
