Title & 109 pp. (engraved throughout). Oblong folio, cont. German half-sheep & marbled paper boards (front hinge strengthened, corners a little worn, some minor soiling & foxing). Zurich: J.G. Naigueli, [1801].

First edition of The Well-Tempered Clavier Book One (BWV 846-869), a landmark in European musical history. It surpassed “ in logic, in format and in musical quality, all earlier endeavours of the same kind by other masters…[it] represents the culmination of a 20-year process of maturation and stands unparalleled in the history of music.”–New Grove, Vol. 1, p. 813. The work, however, had to wait almost 80 years to... More