The three “brilliant” fantasias incline naturally to the concerto style, which partly abandoned counterpoint in favour of a mere accompaniment, and partly subordinated it to the careful elaboration of a single voice-part. The problem of committing a whole concerto to the clavier alone, Bach has solved in his famous “Italian Concerto”--Italian in the conception of the style of execution proper to concertos, which in Italy developed itself specially on the violin--Italian in the form of a slow movement enclosed by two quicker movements, which had emerged as the most practical method for the violin (half in rivalry with the Tutti, half in the interest of solo virtuosity). Bach has in the Italian concerto perfectly attained the object of writing in several movements a clavier piece fit for execution. The grand sonatas of a later time have been able to add nothing essential to it. The first movement is an ingenious combination of pregnant motives, which reminds us of tutti-effects, of running semiquaver figures, and melodious passages on moving quaver accompaniment, which correspond to the second lyrical theme of sonatas. The slow movement is a great recitative song with a berceuse-like accompaniment, of a structure so delicate that we are irresistibly reminded of the contours of old primitive pictures. It has the dainty grace of archaic outline, just like that in the two-part interwoven arioso[80] of the B minor Prelude, or in the crisp melody of the E flat Prelude (Wohltemperiertes Klavier I.). The third movement, which is quicker, unravels the whole into the cheerful linked play of floating parts, unsurpassed in elegant construction by any of the great formalists. Floating passages run up and down among chords, falling like drops of rain, and the voices combine in pleasant unity. [Illustration: Facsimile of Title-page of Bach’s Manuscript of the Wohltemperiertes Klavier. In the Royal Musikbibliothek, Berlin.]