The Eight Little Preludes and Fugues, published here as an arrangement, are well-known firstly because they are widely used as musically attractive teaching material for budding organists (particularly as a stepping-stone to Bach’s larger-scale preludes and fugues) and secondly as a versatile and not too technically challenging source of music for church services. The publisher’s aim was to enable these works to be performed in places where there is a manuals-only organ, harmonium or piano available, and also to enable organists with little ability on the pedals to play this familiar literature. This version for manuals is based on the only manuscript score which has survived, and which was written out by an unknown copyist with extremely precise handwriting [Mus.ms.Bach P 281, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin – Preußischer Kulturbesitz]. This seemed to make sense to the arranger in view of the sometimes remarkable discrepancies in existing editions from this source in terms of barring, ties, uncommented filling-out of the harmony, or even differently placed repeat marks. Klemens Schnorr recently drew attention to this problem in a detailed, critical academic article. The arrangement of the original score, i.e. the integration of the pedal part into the left hand’s line without intervening in the substance of the pieces, posed no difficulties due to the largely compact structure of the music. The distribution of the voices across the lines of music, which deviates in parts from the score, was undertaken for ease of fingering and is of course not binding on the performer. Additions by the arranger of slurs and ornamentation are noted in the edition by means of brackets or dotted lines. Johann Sebastian Bach’s authorship of these pieces was repeatedly questioned over many years, and can probably be considered to have since been scientifically disproven, but it does seem highly likely that the composer was very close to Bach, as is indicated not least by the quality of the compositions.