Bach's WTC ranks only 4-1/2 stars?

When I saw that The Well-Tempered Clavier had only received four and half stars, I asked myself "if one of the supreme masterworks of one of the greatest composers of all times only gets four and a half stars, what the heck gets five stars?"

I love this music, and I like the Dover edition. It's true, it's not quite as legible as the Henle Urtext edition (what is?), but it's about as good a version of the score, there are fewer page turns, and, since it's a fraction of the price of the Henle edition, you can afford to buy two copies, one for writing in, and one for when you want to look at a clean score.

Amazon's current price comes out to less than five cents a page. You can't photocopy it for less!

I've bought several copies over the years, so that I could give them away to people I thought would enjoy them.

No single work of music, by any composer, has brought me as much enjoyment. I'm buying another copy today so that I can have one in my office and one at home.

I'll stop raving now ...

A Bargain at the price

This is the text to get if you're studying Bach's preludes and fugues. As both a pianist and an organist, this is a book i can take from one instrument to the other. It has a no-nonsense approach and gives you just what you need to play. I had used another text of the Well Tempered Clavier and prefer this one above it. At this price, it should be a must in any pianist's or organist's library.

music is great

I got this book when I just learned to play the prelude 1 c major, and thought I would look into others later, even though the majority of those preludes and fugues are far beyond my ability to play. Since then I have tried to play prelude 2 (I) and prelude 24 (II) that is extremly beautiful though not easy to play, and I have listened all preludes and some fugues from CD or midi files with this book opened in front of me. I realized how great Bach's music is. Only complaint is that the cover of the book isn't glued strong enough, which is now seperated from the content pages already after only a short period use. Also, the prelude 1 (book I) is probably the correct version, but I have seen from some other books the other version with an extra measure between bar 22 and 23. I now play it with the extra measure since it seems making sense to me.