J.S. Bach - Prelude and Fugue in A minor “The Great“, BWV 543 {Peter Hurford}

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) Please support my channel: Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV 543 1. Prelude (0:00) 2. Fugue (4:14) Peter Hurford at the Grant Degens & Bradbeer Organ of the New College, Oxford, England Description by Blair Johnston J.S. Bach’s Prelude and Fugue in A minor for organ, BWV 543 (an alternate version is numbered BWV 543a) is probably a product of his years as court organist to the Duke of Saxe-Weimar (1708-1717). It is the final incarnation of music first tried out by Bach in the harpsichord Fugue in A minor, BWV 944, of 1708 or earlier. Not as famous as some other Bach organ works, it is the equal of the best of them. The prelude is a massive, dramatic thing with a weighty, chromatically descending subject, made all the weightier when it is thrust into the pedals midway through the piece. A master organist can shape this into one of the most compelling of all Bach’s fugue introductions. At t