Bach · free recordings and guides
Bach: free recordings and guides
Bach's Goldberg Variations, Well-Tempered Clavier Book 1 and Art of Fugue in free CC0 piano recordings by Kimiko Ishizaka, with a guide to each piece.
Short answer
Three works by Johann Sebastian Bach, played by Kimiko Ishizaka on piano and free to use (CC0): the Goldberg Variations (1 h 22 min), Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier (1 h 49 min) and The Art of Fugue (first minute of each piece). Each has a guide with a player for every piece, a table of facts read from the score and what Wikipedia says.
- 100recordings, all CC0 on Wikimedia Commons
- 98MB of mono mp3 for all three pages
- 3projects: Goldberg, Well-Tempered Clavier, Art of Fugue
- 24keys, each linked to its prelude
All recordings: Kimiko Ishizaka — Open Goldberg Variations / Open Well-Tempered Clavier / The Art of Fugue, CC0. Time signatures, keys and voice counts come from the CC0 scores of the same projects, durations from the audio files, and the historical statements from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).
The three recordings
Each page is a guide you can listen to as you read: a player for every piece, a table of what the score says, and a short Wikipedia background.
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Goldberg Variations
The Aria and 30 variations, complete. Table of type, time signature, key and canon interval for each variation; nine canons; Wikipedia notes on each variation.
Recording project: Open Goldberg Variations, 2012
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The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1
All 24 preludes and 24 fugues, complete, one pair per key, linked to the 24 key pages of this site; prelude time signatures and fugue voice counts.
Recording project: Open Well-Tempered Clavier, 2015
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The Art of Fugue
The contrapuncti, mirror fugues, canons and the unfinished fugue with Ishizaka’s completion; the first minute of each of the 20 pieces (the whole recording lasts 1 h 18 min).
Recording project: The Art of Fugue (Kimiko Ishizaka), 2016
Start listening
One piece from each page. Nothing loads until you press play.
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Goldberg Variations
Aria
- Sarabande
- 3/4
- G major
Aria 5:00 -
Well-Tempered Clavier
Prelude No. 1 in C major, BWV 846
- 4/4
- C major
Prelude No. 1 2:43 -
The Art of Fugue
Contrapunctus 1
- Simple fugue
- 4 voices
- D minor
Contrapunctus 1 (first 60 s) 1:00
Recordings and scores: sources and CC0
Licence check: for each of the 100 files the Wikimedia Commons licence field was read through the Commons API; the build stops if one is not CC0. The Commons PDF scores were read for facts (time signatures, voice counts, manual markings) but are not republished here, and the manuscript scans were not used.
| Work | Files | Licence | Performer and score | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Goldberg Variations | 32 Ogg files (Kimiko_Ishizaka_-_NN_-_...) | CC0 (Commons licence field of every file) | Kimiko Ishizaka; score: Open Goldberg Variations project | Wikimedia Commons |
| Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1 | 48 Ogg files (Kimiko_Ishizaka_-_Bach_-_Well-Tempered_Clavier,_Book_1_-_NN_...) | CC0 (Commons licence field of every file) | Kimiko Ishizaka; score: OpenWTC, MuseScore edition by Olivier Miquel | Wikimedia Commons |
| The Art of Fugue | 20 Ogg files (Kimiko_Ishizaka_-_J.S._Bach,_The_Art_of_Fugue,_BWV_1080_-_NN_...) | CC0 (Commons licence field of every file) | Kimiko Ishizaka (track 20: her own completion) | Wikimedia Commons |
The links
- Open Goldberg Variations — recording and score, project site
- Open Well-Tempered Clavier — Book 1 recording and score, project site
- Commons: Goldberg Variations
- Commons: Well-Tempered Clavier, Book 1
- Commons: The Art of Fugue
Bach in your key
Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier has one prelude and fugue in each of the 24 keys. Every key page on this site now has Bach’s prelude in that key, with a player. Pick a key:
What Wikipedia says
Excerpts from the English Wikipedia articles on the project and the pianist, quoted unchanged (references, templates and images removed).
Open Goldberg Variations
The Open Goldberg Variations is a non-profit project that created a high quality studio recording and typeset score of Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations, and placed them directly into the public domain. By releasing an entirely free version of the classical masterpiece, the project aims to change a common problem: in theory, classical music is a common property due to advanced age, yet it is hard to find quality recordings of it online due to copyrighted restrictions on the performances. Open Goldberg Variations cemented a free, quality version into the public domain, making the music available for everyone and everything, including schools, universities, musicians, private persons and even commercial productions.
To ensure a high quality, the typeset was produced using open-source technology and an open peer reviewing process that allows everyone to edit the script and suggest improvements. Open Goldberg Variations embraces open standards and coined the term "Open Source Bach" in reference to the ideals of Open Source Software.
Production
The creation of the new score was responsible for significant advancements in the state of the art for open source music notation software. Two rounds of public, online peer review were utilized to spot errors and inconsistencies in the new score, as compared to Bach's manuscript.
Source: Wikipedia, “Open Goldberg Variations” — CC BY-SA 4.0 — text excerpted; see the article for the full text and authors. Revision of 2025-12-27.
Kimiko Ishizaka
Music
Born in Bonn, Germany, Ishizaka started playing the piano at age four, was a member of the Ishizaka Trio for 16 years with her brothers and graduated from Hochschule für Musik Köln. As a solo pianist, she has performed concerts throughout Europe, North America and Japan, as well as appearing with the Beethoven Orchester Bonn, the Klassische Philharmonie Bonn and the Jackson Symphony Orchestra (Michigan).
In 1998 Ishizaka won the Deutscher Musikwettbewerb (German Music Competition), along with her brothers Kiyondo Ishizaka and Danjulo Ishizaka.
Ishizaka is part of the Open Goldberg Variations, a Kickstarter-funded, and Bösendorfer-sponsored team that recorded Johann Sebastian Bach's Goldberg Variations and released the score and recordings into the public domain in May 2012.
Ishizaka's interpretation is characterised by straightforward musicianship, immaculate technical aplomb, and a warm, beautifully modulated sonority. Counterpoint passes back and forth between the hands in a conversational and judiciously balanced manner, while a strong lyrical impulse informs the cross-handed variations' rapid, bravura passages.
Source: Wikipedia, “Kimiko Ishizaka” — CC BY-SA 4.0 — text excerpted; see the article for the full text and authors. Revision of 2026-04-17.
Questions
Who is Kimiko Ishizaka?
A German-Japanese pianist, born in Bonn. According to Wikipedia she took part in the Open Goldberg Variations project, funded on Kickstarter, which released her recording and a new score into the public domain in May 2012; she then recorded Book 1 of the Well-Tempered Clavier (released March 2015) and The Art of Fugue (2016, with her own completion of the last fugue). See the Wikipedia excerpt below.
Can I use these recordings in my own video, podcast or app?
Yes: the files are CC0, so no permission and no credit are required, even for commercial use. Take the high-quality originals from Wikimedia Commons for production work. If you do give credit, the form used on this site is: Kimiko Ishizaka — Open Goldberg Variations / Open Well-Tempered Clavier / The Art of Fugue, CC0.
Why piano and not harpsichord?
The recordings are on a modern piano. The Goldberg Variations title page asks for a harpsichord with two manuals, and Wikipedia notes that there is no indication Bach would have approved or disapproved of the piano; the Well-Tempered Clavier was written for “clavier”, which in Bach’s time meant harpsichord, clavichord or organ. Hear a harpsichord on the harpsichord page.
How big are the audio files?
Each page loads no audio until you press play. All 100 mp3 files together are 98 MB (about 463 kB per minute): mono, 32 kHz, variable bit rate. The Art of Fugue is cut to the first 60 seconds of each piece; the other two works are complete.
Recordings: Kimiko Ishizaka — Open Goldberg Variations / Open Well-Tempered Clavier / The Art of Fugue, CC0. The recordings and scores were released by their makers under the CC0 1.0 public-domain dedication; the mp3 files on this page are small mono re-encodings of the Wikimedia Commons originals. Sources: Open Goldberg Variations (CC0 1.0); Open Well-Tempered Clavier (CC0 1.0); Wikimedia Commons (recordings) (CC0 1.0); Wikipedia (excerpts) (CC BY-SA 4.0). Durations are measured from the audio files; the numbers and facts above were built on 2026-10-08. Licences and credits for everything used on this site are on the credits page.