Bach - Invention 13 in A minor

Bach's two-part Inventions (fifteen two-part contrapuntal pieces) were designed as teaching pieces rather than for performance. "Lovers of keyboard music are shown a clear way to learn to play cleanly in two parts," they are studied primarily to develop, in the composer's words, "a cantabile style in playing." As models of inventiveness--how to create new themes and develop them in clever and ingenious ways, the Two- and Three-Part Inventions are succinct and elegant models from which nearly every composer since has derived instruction.