Johann Sebastian Bach - Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro in E-flat, BWV 998 - Dongsok Shin, lautenwerck

Johann Sebastian Bach Prelude, Fugue, and Allegro in E-flat Major, BWV 998 0:00 Prelude 2:47 Fugue 8:24 Allegro Dongsok Shin, lautenwerck Lautenwerck by Anden Houben, Tuscaloosa, AL, 1997 Chinoiserie decoration by Pamela Gladding, Bloomsburg, PA Instrument and Recording Location courtesy of Christine and Jerry Baker Audio and Video Recording and Editing by Dongsok Shin © Dongsok Shin, 2020 An estate inventory is, necessarily, a cold dry listing of one’s earthly possessions. And yet, in the case of J. S. Bach’s, prepared after his death in July 1750, such a list gives tantalizing hints of his professional and family life. Category VI lists 19 instruments, eight of them keyboards, and of those, two are lautenwercks or lute harpsichords. Despite Bach’s apparent fondness for this instrument, no examples survive from the baroque period — only written descriptions. What is a lautenwerck? It is simply a type of harpsichord, with primarily gut instead of metal strings. Jakob Adlung (1699-1762) in his