Prelude and Fugue in A minor, BWV543 "The Great"

The piece falls into two connected halves, played without a break.

Prelude: It opens with a swirling, almost improvisatory figure that spins upward and cascades back down, built from rapid scale patterns passed between the hands. This restless energy keeps returning throughout, alternating with brief, more sustained chordal moments, so the movement feels like it is constantly gathering and releasing tension. Listen for the way the opening flourish returns near the end, framing the movement like bookends.

Fugue: A fugue is a piece built from a single short melodic idea, called a subject, that enters one voice at a time and then keeps reappearing, overlapping with itself, as the piece goes on. Here the subject is a quick, angular figure that immediately sets a propulsive, almost mechanical drive in motion. As more voices enter, the texture thickens and the pace never really lets up. Listen for the low pedal line, played by the organist's feet, which repeatedly anchors the harmony beneath the busier hand parts. The fugue builds in intensity toward a full, richly voiced close that uses the organ's largest sound.

Bach wrote a number of large-scale prelude and fugue pairs for organ during his years in Weimar and later Leipzig, working out increasingly ambitious ways to link a free, exploratory opening movement with a tightly constructed fugue. BWV 543 is one of the most technically demanding and widely admired of these pairs, earning the nickname "The Great" from later generations of organists and listeners struck by its scale and brilliance. Its exact date and occasion are not firmly documented, but it circulated widely in manuscript copies during and after Bach's lifetime, a sign of how quickly it became a favorite among organists. It remains one of the pieces most often used to showcase both a performer's technique and an organ's capabilities in concert halls and churches alike.