Why did bach write 48 preludes and fugues?
To celebrate the new system of tuning in which all 12 keys are compromised. Until that time, keyboard instruments were tuned in such a way that they sounded perfect in one key but awful in any other key. This new system, in which all 12 keys are feasible, but are off by a slight margin which most listeners could not detect, was called the “well-tempered” system. We know very little about the circumstances under which Bach wrote the composition. We have a brief mention of it in Historisch-Biographisches Lexicon der Tonkustler by Ernst Ludwig Gerber, written in 1790. On page 90, the author says that Bach told the author’s father that he wrote the composition at a time when he had nothing else to do. On page 491,. the author says that his father studied under Bacfh in Weimer and heard him play the entire composition through three times. Nor do we know why Bach went through the whole process a second time, 15 years later. We do know that Bach was deluged with music students at this time, a
